TOWARD A PEDAGOGICALLY-INFORMED FRAMEWORK DERIVED FROM CHOMSKY'S TRANSFORMATIONAL GRAMMAR THEORY

Syntax is essential for sentence generation as it determines word order and structure. Transformational Grammar (TG), a key development in 20th-century linguistics, emerged from efforts to explain how speakers articulate thoughts in their language, stemming from the cognitive revolution of the 1950s. This study investigated the whys and hows of improving the pedagogical aspects of Transformational Grammar Theory, focusing on its development and practical applications in the "Structure of English" course. Through thematic analysis of interviews, two main themes emerged: (1) Factors leading to the Pedagogical Improvement of the Theory, and (2) Practical Application to Teaching Innovations. Under the first emerging theme, one of the findings revealed the theory's limited scope to fully master syntax. Moreover, despite the incompleteness, TG’s concepts are a good source for teachers’ pedagogical initiatives, and while there are concept complexities, these are manageable for linguistics students. On the other hand, the second theme articulated the inclusion of additional grammatical topics, utilization of a bottom-up structured teaching strategy, and the application of TG’s competence-performance distinction to assessment. A conceptual framework was proposed to demonstrate pedagogical improvements to the theory's relevance in modern language teaching, especially in Syntax.