Diagramming Sentences

Diagramming sentences is a method of understanding the parts of speech and how they go together to form sentences in English.

These products are especially useful if you teach writing classes or exam classes. They type of class where the student may ask: "Teacher. Can you explain why this sentence is wrong?" If a question like this is difficult to answer, you may need a course such as this.

Elizabeth O'Brien's series of sentence diagramming products are also fun. I've used them myself to make sure.

When the teacher has complete confidence in the grammar and how to teach grammar, it benefits everyone; the teacher and the student alike.

Diagramming Sentences - My Experience

Elizabeth's website gave me confidence in her products, and I bought them. Partly to test and see if I could recommend them, partly because I was teaching many exam classes and English composition classes where I needed to explain sentence structure in an interesting way. Her books were better than I had expected. Click here to view more details

When I studied linguistics, I learnt how to parse a sentence using tree diagrams. This was fine - in a way - although a little dull. However, sentence diagramming is a clear and surprisingly fun way to understand English grammar. Over an hour had passed and was still happily absorbed in diagramming the sentences.

This is enough reason to be interested in sentence diagramming. I do not normally feel excited to breakdown sentences into the various parts of speech! If I can become absorbed - so can students. If you are interested in deepening your own understanding of English grammar and sentence structure - and at the same time benefiting your students - then these courses and e-books are worth looking at.

Diagramming Sentences - Courses and E-Books

'Sentence Diagramming' takes you slowly from basic sentence structure to more complex sentences in 70 pages. Subjects covered in the book include: modifiers, prepositional phrases, coordinating conjunctions, interfections, types of verbs, subordinating conjunctions, relative pronouns, verbals and more. Full explanations are given, as well as exercises with answers.

This method of diagramming sentences is a very clear way for students, and teachers, to understand basic sentence structure. The pdf file can be printed out and copied for the class, giving the teacher ready made exercises to use.

By the time you've finished the exercises your understanding of English sentence structure and your ability to explain it in class, will have improved substantially.

I was also pleased that Elizabeth answered the questions I had - via email - very quickly.

I also bought the 'Sentence Diagramming Encyclopedia', which is a reference book on diagramming sentences. It has an alphabetical page of contents for quick reference. Although the encyclopedia is a very good reference source, her book, Sentence Diagramming, will probably be of more use to most teachers - as well as to any native speakers who wish to improve their knowledge of English grammar, or to any learners of English (intermediate level or higher).

Elizabeth also offers other products including 37 week courses - for busy teachers - which cover the whole academic year, offering daily diagrams which can save a busy teacher a lot of time in lesson preparation. Although I've not tried the 37 week course, from using her other materials, I feel confident of its quality.

She also offers basic grammar video lessons.

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