One day a private student, upper intermediate level, was practicing countable and uncountable nouns. She was reviewing picture cards of some everyday nouns, when she ran into a little difficulty sorting out the difference between a slice of cake and a hunk of cheese. She asked about pie and pizza, and then chuckled nervously at the piece and slice. But she took notes and—what a trooper—hung in there.
Then “Evil Sue” took over. I introduced her to “piece of cake!” Not to be confused with a slice of cake (or a piece of cake, for that matter!) I explained the idiom to her, and her eyes widened and, frankly, she looked stunned. “How am I going to remember these?” I could almost see the words pass across her forehead while she looked at me rather blankly. Like a deer in the headlights.
I just smiled. Suddenly, she laughed and I saw a light bulb go on over her head. She loved it! She repeated it to herself several more times to get the intonation and inflection down.
At the end of the lesson, I asked her how today went for her, and she said, “It wasn’t a piece of cake.” Perfect answer! Evil Sue is a genius!
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