In classrooms a fair amount of time is given towards top-down activities: i.e. activating schema. Yet as Swan and Walter point out (2017), comprehension difficulties are likely the result of bottom-up deficiencies. One of which, needed for the Korean College Entrance Exam (SAT), is parsing long sentences with multiple clauses and/or multiple verbs and nouns. Sentence Diagramming is a rather old-fashioned method of teaching grammar to native speakers. It is sometimes used in Korea today. A search on https://academic.naver.com/ reveals nothing specific to learners in Korea. This makes one wonder: is sentence diagramming a waste of time?

In my experience, diagramming helps students but as with any method, there are limitations. This pecha-kucha discusses how diagramming can help students, which students it can help, and what skills it can help improve. This pecha-kucha also discusses its pedagogical limitations as a method.