Phrasal verbs and idioms in context - Lession 5: Evening class

PHRASAL VERBS AND IDIOMS IN CONTEXT 05
EVENING CLASS
 ‘Tell you what Maria. Why don’t you come on down to the evening classes and distract yourself?’
 ‘What evening classes?’
 ‘The ones I teach down near Termini station. You won’t need to pay anything. I will speak to the woman who runs the school and ask if my new flat mate can sit through the lessons. I’ll explain that you’re going through a bad patch and need some kind of distraction. It’ll be good therapy for you to be in amongst people instead of sitting here crying your eyes out night in and night out hoping that sooner or later he’ll call you to say he’s made a big mistake. You won’t be coming as a ‘real student’ but as a friend of mine who needs to get out of the house for a bit.’
 After a while Karen managed to talk Maria into joining her at the evening classes.
 Signora Dora Berlucci, who ran the school, said it would be okay as long as Maria did not take away the students’ valuable lesson time especially their “TT”, (talking time). What, with ten students in a lesson that lasted 60 minutes there wasn’t much talking time per student as it was without someone else taking it up. After all, these students were paying good money for their English course.
 Student satisfaction was extremely important to Signora Berlucci. She never stopped reminding the teachers that they weren’t to forget “SS”, student satisfaction.
 ‘Don’t worry Signora Berlucci,’ said Karen. ‘She will be an asset to the class. She can help the weaker students in the pair-work activities. She’s got a sound understanding of English. You can look upon her as an unpaid classroom assistant.’
 Signora Berlucci was really quite a nice woman underneath that strict look she had about her. She was in her late fifties, was quite plump and was always to be seen dripping in cheap costume jewellery. She wore bright colours that often clashed. She didn’t have any dress sense at all. Her hair was dyed bright orange and tied up in a bun. She wore dangling ear-rings that almost reached down to her shoulders. But Dora Berlucci had one thing in her favour; she was an excellent sales person. She seemed to be able to sell English language courses to any student who came into the school even if
they were just there to make enquiries. She had them sign up for courses before you could say Jack Flash. She was the type of person who could talk an Eskimo into buying a fridge.
 That evening Maria attended the evening class with Karen and the next and the next again. She felt refreshed. Everyone in the class was so very nice. She felt so useful. The students liked her presence and she had a great deal of knowledge to share with them. After all, she had attended numerous English courses in her lifetime and not only, she was a qualified teacher, maybe not of English, but still.
 On the fourth night just as Karen and Maria were about to say goodbye to the students, Signora Berlucci called them over to introduce them to a new “teacher” she was about to employ for the conversation classes. His name was Mark and he was from Liverpool.
 Mark was glad to have found a bit of company. He told them he’d only been in Rome for four days and had been wandering about on his own feeling pretty lonely. He’d just been to a nearby Irish pub in the hope they’d take him on, even if it were only for a couple of nights a week. ‘Anything was better than nothing,’ he added. The pub owner had told him that for the time being they didn’t need any more bar staff but would keep him in mind if anything were to come up.
 Mark already knew that working in a pub was not the ideal setting for someone like himself who was planning on going teetotal but it would have been a start to earning some cash. The less he dipped into what money he had, the better.
 Mark had been foolish in many aspects of his life but not with money. He’d grown up in a family where money had been tight and every penny had to be accounted for. What, with ten mouths to feed ma and pa had had no money for luxuries. Holidays had been completely out of the question.
 They’d only ever been on the occasional day trip to Blackpool. Those trips, which had been few and far between, had felt like a lottery win for the whole family. His upbringing had made him aware of the true value of money and that it was not to be wasted although he hated to admit to himself that he had ‘drunk’ quite a bit of his money down at the local pub over the years. That didn’t count he tried to justify to himself. That was “enjoyment” money and a man needed to let himself go every once in a while.
 ‘Anyway,’ Mark added, ‘an American guy who works in the Irish pub said that someone had mentioned that they might need teachers in this English anguage school. I’ve never taught in my life but I’m willing to give anything a go. As the saying goes ‘God loves a trier’. I spent 13 years working in a margarine factory in Liverpool so this will be a completely new line of work for me.’
 Mark had no idea about grammar except that an adjective was a describing word that described a noun and a verb was a doing word and a noun was a naming word. How could he ever forget? His primary school teacher had rammed it down his throat for years.
 Signora Berlucci gave him a grammar book to take home and study. He thought there was a mistake in the book when he read about the “present perfect”. ‘Shouldn’t that be the perfect present? You know the ideal gift.’ Karen and Maria couldn’t stop laughing. There was some logic in what he had just said. 
 After all, perfect was an adjective so why was it after the noun? Another absurdity of English.
 Dora Berlucci said he could have one elementary class and that he was to begin by teaching them the present tense, whatever that was, thought Mark. He’d have to consult the grammar book when he got back to the hotel. He’d booked a room in a small, cheap, seedy hotel, in the vicinity of Termini station which he’d found on a last-minute, low-cost website prior to leaving Liverpool. He was going to be staying there for two weeks until he found a small flat at an affordable price. He’d managed to get the room at the super low cost of 12 euros per night. The American he’d met in the Irish pub had told him that the San Giovanni area was quite a popular location among the English speaking community. Maybe Karen or that gorgeous Italian girl Maria could point him in the right direction.
 Later on when he mentioned it to Karen she said it was a pretty pricey place to live and that many of the English community over at San Giovanni shared with other people.
***
 Mark had one thing in his favour – his excellent creativity skills. Karen helped him with the grammar explanations while his ideas about the lessons seemed to just appear out of thin air. Maria started to laugh and joke again. She was having a whale of a time down at the language school and also with helping Mark with his future lessons. Mark was a big hit with the students.
 They loved his Liverpudlian dry sense of humour. He was ever so quick witted. Mark loved being around Maria and vice versa. Maria told Karen that although she still couldn’t stop thinking about Giancarlo, being in Mark’s bright and merry company was of tremendous help. She hadn’t failed to notice how good looking he was either. Without the booze and the monotonous days shut in the margarine factory, Mark felt he was beginning to look more like that good-looker he’d once been. When he looked at himself in the mirror, a face with a healthy glow stared back at him instead of that purplish coloured complexion he’d had when in Liverpool. ‘Mmm,’ thought Mark, ‘things were beginning to look up.’
GLOSSARY – PHRASAL VERBS
Account for – justify
Come up – arise
Dip into – use money from an amount that you’ve put aside/saved
Get back to (a place) – return to a place where you previously were
Get out of – leave, escape from
Grow up – grow from a baby to an adult
Look upon (someone) as – consider as
Sit through (something) – be there to observe without participating
Sign up for (something) – enrol or subscribe
Take on/take (someone) on – hire someone to work for you
Take up – occupy time or space
Talk (someone) into (something) – persuade someone to do something
Wander about/around – aimlessly walk around with no particular destination
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GLOSSARY – IDIOMS AND EXPRESSIONS
After all – reinforces and supports what was said before by giving an additional reason
Appear out of thin air – suddenly appear from nowhere
As it is – in the present condition/circumstances, the way things stand at present /as it was = the past of ‘as it is’
Be a big hit – be very popular
Be few and far between – occur on rare occasions
Be out of the question – unthinkable/to be too ridiculous to even consider
Be quick-witted – have an excellent sense of humour and be able to reply in an intelligent and funny way without having to think too much 
Before you can/could say Jack Flash – an English expression which means to do something very quickly/superfast
Cry (one’s) eyes out – cry so much that one feels his/her eyes may come out
Every once in a while – occasionally/occurring infrequently
For the time being – for now, for the present, used to say that although a condition or situation is the way it is now, it could change in the future
Give anything a go – try anything
Go teetotal – quit drinking alcohol for good (forever)
Go through a bad patch – be in the midst of a difficult situation/be experiencing hard times
God loves a trier – God loves a person who makes an attempt to do something to help his/her situation in life, this phrase probably derives from the biblical phrase “God helps those who help themselves.”
Have a whale of a time – to thoroughly enjoy oneself
Keep (someone) in mind – to consider someone in the future if a situation such as a job arises
Let (oneself) go – relax and enjoy oneself to the full
Night in and night out – every night and all night
Point (someone) in the right direction – give indications which will lead to a successful outcome
Pretty pricey – rather expensive
Ram into – if you ram something into someone you force the person to accept an idea by continuously repeating it until it enters into his/her head
Tell you what – this expression introduces a suggestion or an offer
Things were beginning to look up – if things are beginning to look up, it means that things are starting to go in your favour