Why I quit NASA to become an ESL Teacher

- [Tiffani] Hey!

My name is Teacher Tiffani

and I want to tell you something.

I used to work for NASA.

Yeah, that's right.

NASA.

But one day I quit and I decided

to become an English teacher.

Today I want to tell you my story.

Welcome to Speak English with Tiffani.

I am Teacher Tiffani.

Let's jump right in.

It all started in the year 2000.

That's the year that I went to university,

and I had two majors.

My first major was Computer Science

because I loved computers,

and my second major was Commercial Art

because I had always, and I still do love art.

In 2004, I graduated.

It had been a great four years, but now

it was time to move forward in life.

After graduation I received a phone call.

It led to an interview.

The interview was great,

and because the interview was so great,

you guessed it, I got a job at NASA.

Everything was amazing.

My job at NASA was as a web developer.

I designed multiple websites

for different sectors of NASA.

It was great.

I was a part of the planning, the development,

and the maintenance of multiple websites.

I had an amazing boss, who treated

his employees with the utmost respect,

and I also had amazing coworkers.

So I have so many good memories

about my time at NASA.

But while I was working there,

I started to feel like something was missing.

You see, remember I was an artist,

and I wanted to use my art

to directly help people.

During this time of trying to figure out

what I should do with my life,

I had some friends who had lived in Korea,

some of them for a few months,

and some of them for a couple of years,

and they raved about how amazing Korea was.

So I thought to myself

maybe I should also go to Korea.

So, in 2009, that's exactly what I did.

I took the long 14-hour flight

and went to South Korea.

My time in South Korea was spent

as a missionary English teacher.

I had so many students from businessmen

to businesswomen, doctors, lawyers,

homemakers, stay-at-home moms.

It was amazing!

I had thousands of students

and I loved all of them.

But there was something that happened.

You see, as I was spending time

with my students, I started noticing

how hard they were studying.

They were studying English grammar,

English expressions, English vocabulary,

English pronunciation, and English idioms,

and something came to mind.

It was a quote from Nelson Mandela.

The quote says, "If you talk to a man

"in a language he understands,

"that goes to his head.

"If you talk to him in his language,

"that goes to his heart."

You see, what was happening in my heart was

I desired to reach my students

truly and sincerely, I wanted to speak

to their hearts, which meant

I also had to start studying.

And that's when I decided to study Korean,

Korean grammar, expressions, everything.

And at that time this is

what my schedule looked like.

I would wake up at 4 am every day,

study for about four hours,

then take a shower, and at 9 am

I would go to my Korean classes,

which lasted about three hours.

Then I would come back home, eat lunch,

and start work at 2 pm and finish at 10 pm.

This was my schedule for about 10 months.

All because I wanted to reach my students,

I wanted to learn a language

just like they were learning a language.

But what happened is, as I was studying,

I began to understand how to transition

from a beginner to an intermediate learner,

and then from an intermediate

to an advanced learner.

And I decided to take what I was learning

to my students, to my intermediate,

advanced students, and I wanted

to teach them what I had learned,

the principles and the concepts.

So I started teaching them how to give a speech,

how to develop and organize your ideas,

how to speak English with confidence,

how to make long sentences, and so many

other things that were not taught

in the class before that.

And something amazing happened.

My students began to improve very quickly.

It was like a light bulb went off

in their head, and their speech

and their way of thinking in English

improved rapidly.

So, then I started thinking a little bit more.

If my students at my classroom

were improving so much,

how about starting a YouTube channel

where I can help even more students?

So I started Speak English With Tiffani.

Now, initially my plan was only

to help Korean students.

But what I realized was that Indian students,

Vietnamese students, Japanese students,

all of these students from around the world

started to watch my YouTube channel,

and they were learning the same concepts,

and they were improving their English.

So, in 2018, I left Korea.

I moved back to America and decided

to continue teaching English online

to help ESL students across the world.

So what's my goal?

Why did I do it?

Why did I leave NASA to teach English,

and why am I still doing it?

Here's the reason.

I want to help one million students.

That's my goal.

I'm Teacher Tiffani.

If you haven't received your free

Speak English Ebook yet,

go to SpeakEnglishWithTiffani.com/ebook right now.

I know that this ebook will help you

improve your English and also help you

understand more of the expressions

that native English speakers use.

And remember you can also watch

my next English video lesson

on the left by clicking it.

If you ever need help,

remember you can also email me

at [email protected].

I want to help you speak English

and enjoy doing it.