Is this YOUR class or OUR class?

When facing a class of 20 students, some tasks can be difficult. For example, you cannot correct each student's essay thoroughly during a lesson because you cannnot keep 19 students waiting with questions while attempting to review one student's paper. There are various ways of dealing with this dilemna. For example, the teacher can review the essays when students are working on a reading or listening assignment, or simply do all the proofreading after class. The latter is often not a teacher's favourite choice, especially if he/she is not paid for that time by his/her employer (...visions of my Dad's face having to correct papers after work when all he wanted to do was have a snack and get to the piano).

There is another problem that can occur when teaching a large class. Sometimes there is a well meaning student who thinks that his/her questions are appropriate to ask at any time of the lesson. This goes for questions that are off topic. This goes for questions that are personal, i.e. to clarify things misunderstood by them alone. When students do this, it is actually rather selfish. Depending upon the professionalism of the teacher, such students can end up usurping his/her classmates' time in a way that can reach various levels of ANNOYANCE.


Of course we cannot resort to the method used in the picture here.


So I pose the following question:

Have you got any good one-liners to use with students who have a tendency to use class time as some sort of private tuition time?

Looking forward to your comments!



p.s. such students will not hesitate to take up the teacher's break/lunch time as well so it is important to really nip this behaviour in the bud.

p.s.s. Farsi proverbs would be especially appreciated.

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