An Explanation of WEIRDO Verbs

Years ago in Spanish class I learned subjunctive in the same grueling way that people before me had learned - with long and complicated rules that made little sense to me and that seemed incomprehensible.

"The subjunctive mood occurs with a change of subject in subordinate clauses and requires the the employment of a verb of volition, negation, or doubt in the main clause."

It is no wonder everyone thought the subjunctive so hard!  Rules like the above make it nearly impossible to understand.

Years ago I came across the acronym WEIRDO that was used to describe which sorts of verbs would trigger the subjunctive in the subordinate clause.  It was like a breath of fresh air and I suddenly had a cute little way of laying out the rules for the subjunctive to my students.

But I have a lot of teachers write to me and tell me they don't know what I mean by "weirdo verbs" or that they would like to have a way of presenting this material to their students.  Yesterday Michelle, a reader of this blog, wrote and asked how to teach weirdo verbs to her students.  So I got to thinking about it and decided to make a Power Point that we can use to show to our students and help them make sense of the subjunctive.

I had a great time making this slide show, creating the background images, animating my little weirdo monster and playing around with various colors and effects.  I think your students will find it memorable and I hope it will help them to understand the mechanics of the subjunctive a bit better.  Click the image above or click here to download the Power Point.

I would love to hear from you if you find it useful, amigos.

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK