Used...

Twice a week I have office hours where my students can come make up lessons or ask questions. There are also several non-English majors who come to talk with the foreigner and practice their English. (I also attend English corner on Tuesdays where about 40 students excitedly try to talk with the 1 foreigner…me.)

I have one student, let’s call her Maggie, who comes every Thursday without fail. Many times it is just me and her, and I love it. She comes with a notebook full of questions…questions from newspaper articles she has read or life that she has encountered that week.

However, there have been more and more students coming to practice their English. They are at times pushy and want me to magically pull interesting topics out of my hat that they can discuss in English. (this can be hard at times to find interesting topics that also coincides with their vocabularies) They get upset if there are too many students and they do not get my undivided attention. As I was walking home the other day, I was trying to work through my annoyance at their attitudes. Another foreigner had said that it also irked them that people “just want to use us to practice English.” As I focused in on the words “just use us” I bristled with irritation.

And the words kept rolling through my head…”Just use us…”

And then I realized…isn’t that what I came here for? Didn’t I come to be used?

Some days that will look like a nice chat with my dear student Maggie. Other days, that will be a long drawn out conversation with a pushy student who insists that I help them improve their English so that they can be magically fluent in three weeks for their trip to Shanghai.  Other days it could be me reading the Christmas story for the first time to my excited students. Whatever it is…I want to be used.