James Anthony Dwyer - Trusted TEFL Reviews https://trustedteflreviews.com/tag/james-anthony-dwyer/ TEFL and TESOL Online Certification Course Reviews in 2026. Sun, 21 Dec 2025 06:49:32 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://i0.wp.com/trustedteflreviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/cropped-trusted-tefl-reviews-logo.png?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1 James Anthony Dwyer - Trusted TEFL Reviews https://trustedteflreviews.com/tag/james-anthony-dwyer/ 32 32 159069400 Online TEFL TESOL Course Review Scams in 2026 https://trustedteflreviews.com/2025/02/07/online-tefl-course-review-scams/ https://trustedteflreviews.com/2025/02/07/online-tefl-course-review-scams/#comments Thu, 06 Feb 2025 23:01:00 +0000 http://trustedteflreviews.com/?p=2623 This article is about online TEFL TESOL course review scams in 2026. The article begins under the two following advertising banners. Banner #1 is for a limited-time discount from TEFL Online Pro – winner of the 2025 Teachers’ Choice Award. The winner of the Teachers’ Choice award may, at their discretion, advertise for free on […]

The post Online TEFL TESOL Course Review Scams in 2026 appeared first on Trusted TEFL Reviews.

]]>
This article is about online TEFL TESOL course review scams in 2026.

The article begins under the two following advertising banners.

Banner #1 is for a limited-time discount from TEFL Online Pro – winner of the 2025 Teachers’ Choice Award. The winner of the Teachers’ Choice award may, at their discretion, advertise for free on Trusted TEFL Reviews for as long as they are the holder of this prestigious award.

Banner #2 is the current list of the 5 Best online TEFL/TESOL certification courses, based on verified student reviews. If in doubt, choose from one of the 5 Best course programs because they are all internationally recognized and reputable companies.

Both banners represent top-rated online TEFL and TESOL certification course programs.

The 5 Best Online TEFL & TESOL certification courses in 2023 & 2024 - trustedteflreviews.com

Online TEFL TESOL course review scams in 2026.

(Updated: December 21, 2025)

This is a must-read article if you are choosing which TEFL course to take and are confused by which ones are legitimate and which ones are scams.

The scams are becoming more and more sophisticated.

To prevent your TEFL dream turning into a TEFL nightmare, we strongly recommend that you read this article in full.

Online TEFL TESOL Scam TEFL programs.

Currently, the more notable scam TEFL companies are ESLinsider, ITTT International TEFL and TESOL Training, MyTEFL, The TEFL Academy, and World TESOL Academy.

1. ESLinsider

ESLinsider (Ian Patrick Leahy) portrays himself as a TEFL whistleblower and he trashes almost every TEFL program online for seemingly altruistic motives, but his endgame is to sell you one TEFL course – his TEFL course. Among a long list of criminal activity, he was recommending TEFL students without college degrees to buy fake ones online. Some people followed his advice and (in China) were arrested, fined, deported. Ian is currently wanted by the Chinese authorities and is essentially on the lamb, living a transient life in the United States. Ian was banned from Facebook for spreading misinformation and disinformation way back in 2017. https://www.eslinsider.com/

2. ITTT International TEFL and TESOL Training

ITTT International TEFL and TESOL Training operates under more than 20 different websites. Each one looks similar, but is different just enough so that you would be forgiven into believing that one website is a different company from another website. This company has a bogus accreditation from a website that spells it as “Accredidation”. Affiliate marketing is their lean and they have one favorite who will say and write anything to get you to make the purchase: Linda Dunsmore. ITTT will take your money, give you access to a subpar course, fail to respond to online tutor requests, and ghost you when it comes time for the advertised “free” job-finding help – unless you pay through the nose for their job placement services, which you are recommended to avoid like the plague.

3. MyTEFL

MyTEFL used to be accredited by OTTSA (a website they created) and are now accredited by a bogus company: International TEFL Accreditation Council (ITEFLAC). Folks, official accreditation company website’s don’t have stock images of business people in office boardrooms. MyTEFL offer affordable TEFL courses, but they make their real money from paid job placement services. Do not pay for this service. If you do, when you receive your weekly or monthly teaching pay, without realizing it at first, MyTEFL will be skimming up to 25% off. And what can you do about it when you have locked yourself into a job contract with a language school through MyTEFL? https://mytefl.com/

4. The TEFL Academy (TTA)

The TEFL Academy (TTA) is a truly corrupt corporate company. They claim to be the “Worlds #1 TEFL Course Provider!” They are not. And, despite their many claims, they are not accredited. The TEFL Academy claims to be accredited by AQC, DEAC, QUALIFI, and even by Ofqual. It is only regulated by Ofqual and QUALIFI, and it also appears that QUALIFI might have been created by the good folks at The TEFL Academy. AQC is a sister website of DEAC, and you can see that The TEFL Academy is not accredited by DEAC because DEAC has a search feature that shows all the companies that it accredits – The TEFL Academy is not listed. As with ITTT, The TEFL Academy pays affiliate marketers to promote its courses. More about this below. https://www.theteflacademy.com/

5. World TESOL Academy

World TESOL Academy is likewise shady as hell. They offer TEFL courses for $38 and this appears to lure in a lot of unsuspecting folk. After you pay, you get bombarded with requests to become one of their affiliate marketers. Students rate the course as “terrible” and a bit like flying with Ryanair, with a smorgasbord of hidden fees and additional costs. World TESOL Academy is accredited by Accreditat and CPD that are pay-for-accreditation companies that are not recognized by any reputable language schools. Another red flag is that they have the Reviews tab disabled on their Facebook page. https://www.worldtesolacademy.com/

Ian Patrick Leahy | Monroe | New Hampshire
Here is a photo of Ian Patrick Leahy, ESLinsider – the mastermind who recommended students without degrees buy fake ones online.

How TEFL companies scam you.

Besides the above mentioned scams, there are some complex ways in which some TEFL companies will scam you.

And the sophistication of the scams is intensifying.

TEFL Review Website Bedfellows

Go Abroad, Go Overseas and TEFL Course Review are the three biggest TEFL review websites. They each make their money from charging TEFL companies for a listing on their site – the TEFL companies are their customers – and it is in their best financial interests to have positive reviews about (fill in the blank) TEFL company than to have bad reviews published. This is why a company like The TEFL Academy has a high review score on all three websites – they make certain that negative reviews of them are minimized and they are free to have fake positive reviews appear on all three sites, and on the other review sites where they have a listing. Incidentally, The TEFL Academy has a lot of money at their disposal and frequently sue individuals and companies if they dare to publish something negative about them. Trusted TEFL Reviews published a few negative student reviews of The TEFL Academy and we were warned that if they were not taken down, they would sue us. We simply responded that the reviews will remain published because they were written by students of their program.

Affiliate Marketing

If you see an individual excessively promoting a TEFL program – with or without a coupon code for a discount – it will certainly be an affiliate marketer. Caitriona McTiernan and Megan Broccoli are the two main ones for The TEFL Academy and Linda Dunsmore heads the ITTT affiliate marketing side of the business. A large majority of TEFL programs belong to affiliate marketing companies, paying people who have never taken their courses to promote them online and earn money for themselves in the process. They will say and write absolutely anything (“the course was AMAZING!”) to make the sell, such as promises of earning $100 per hour for teaching English online. No one earns anywhere near to $100 teaching English online.

Trashing A Business Competitor

In the Wild West of online TEFL, anything goes. It’s very common for TEFL companies to trash each other online. They create fake profiles and then write fake complaints and fake reviews – misinformation and disinformation – on complaints websites and Reddit. And TEFL programs with deep pockets, such as The TEFL Academy, have now started to pay people to take a competitor’s course and then slam it online. This is cruel and clever because the person can show that they have a certificate from the TEFL company and can write exactly what the company tells them to write. A recent case involved one of the affiliate marketers from The TEFL Academy – Megan Broccoli – who purchased a TEFL Online Pro course, completed it, claimed after an hour of course completion that she couldn’t use the certificate, and began spreading her message on Reddit and elsewhere that the company is a scam. Something similar also happened to OISE University of Toronto TEFL and CIEE TEFL. CIEE TEFL, OISE University of Toronto TEFL and TEFL Online Pro are among the 5 Best Online TEFL/TESOL certification courses.

Reddit

When Online TEFL/TESOL courses were gaining traction about 15 years ago, in response to the established in-person TEFL/TESOL course industry, a few of them set up Reddit communities – communities that they used and continue to use to push their agenda. This tends to focus on trashing their competitors and clandestinely promoting their courses. We recommend avoiding Reddit for Online TEFL/TESOL course information because of this, and because of the vast number of TEFL shills active on the site.

Niche subreddits, such as online course communities, are often run by people with a vested interest in promoting certain courses—for which they receive a financial kickback. This often leads them to delete positive comments about any business competitors of the courses from which they receive kickbacks.

The r/TEFL subreddit is well known for this type of behavior—they allow positive comments for their favored TEFL companies but prevent students of some other TEFL programs from posting honest reviews of their course experiences. They even have a Reddit Wiki page that clearly demonstrates the quid pro quo partnership they maintain with certain programs.

Trashing Trusted TEFL Reviews

It must be so frustrating for the many TEFL programs that don’t have the kind of power over Trusted TEFL Reviews that they lord over other TEFL review websites. So what do they do? They spread misinformation and disinformation about me and Trusted TEFL Reviews because they just can’t handle having even one or two negative reviews published online about them. By trying to discredit this website, they hope that people won’t believe the reviews of their program. All TEFL programs listed on Trusted TEFL Reviews have a free listing and all TEFL programs are free to respond to reviews and to add comments.

The TEFL Wall of Shame.

Important Clarifying Information.

Several points need addressing, and I will write about each one separately:

The Teachers’ Choice Award

Several Online TEFL companies are claiming that the Teachers’ Choice Award is fake. It isn’t. We created the Teachers’ Choice Award back in 2019, after noticing that other mainstream TEFL review websites had also created their awards. The fundamental difference between our award and the awards of other mainstream TEFL review websites is that the winner of the Teachers’ Choice Award is based on merit alone – voted for by language schools, universities, TEFL students, and TEFL graduates. If a company has won an award from a mainstream TEFL review website, it means they have likely paid for the privilege of “winning” that award.

TEFL Online Pro

TEFL Online Pro (https://teflonlinepro.com/) has won the Teachers’ Choice Award for seven consecutive years – they are the highest-rated in 2026. They have won the award every year because they were the Online TEFL/TESOL program that received the most votes. Trusted TEFL Reviews does not own TEFL Online Pro, just as it doesn’t own the other four Online TEFL/TESOL programs that currently hold the place of being one of the 5 Best Online TEFL/TESOL programs. Trusted TEFL Reviews is an independent Online TEFL/TESOL reviews website. We are not affiliated with any TEFL/TESOL program listed on the Trusted TEFL Reviews website.

Trusted TEFL Reviews is a not-for-profit website

Contrary to what some Online TEFL programs claim, it doesn’t cost anything to list your Online TEFL/TESOL program on Trusted TEFL Reviews. Also, we don’t allow any paid advertising because we feel that it could present a conflict of interest. The only advertising allowed is granted to the TEFL program winner of the annual Teachers’ Choice Award. TEFL Online Pro (https://trustedteflreviews.com/category/tefl-online-pro-reviews-in-2025/) is the winner of this year’s award, so they have been allowed to promote any TEFL course discounts that they may run during the year. This additional exposure on Trusted TEFL Reviews is without charge for the TEFL program currently enjoying Teachers’ Choice Award winner status.

I am not a man

I identify as a woman because I am a woman, living and teaching English in Vienna, Austria. Contrary to what some Online TEFL/TESOL companies have written about me online, I am not a “man”, I am not a “dyke”, and I am not a “b!tch”. I am a mother. I co-own Trusted TEFL Reviews with my partner and we run Trusted TEFL Reviews together, from our apartment in Vienna. We also have a small office within the city limits that we visit mostly during the summer months when the air-con in the office is a welcome respite. We also run the Teachers’ Choice Award from this office. It is no Online TEFL/TESOL program’s beeswax what our addresses are and we both feel safer not disclosing our addresses. I have received threats in the past simply because I wouldn’t delete a negative review written about one of the TEFL programs listed on Trusted TEFL Reviews.

We never delete reviews from Trusted TEFL Reviews, unless the review is later found to be fake

Online TEFL/TESOL course programs are the customers of the mainstream Online TEFL/TESOL review websites. The programs pay a yearly fee to be listed on the review website, and this is how those review websites generate the majority of their commercial income. Those review websites have a strong financial incentive to hide negative reviews and hold almost no verification process for publishing positive reviews – the vast majority of which are written by the TEFL company. Trusted TEFL Reviews has a strong verification process in place and we only publish reviews that have been proven to have been written by a real TEFL student. This has infuriated a few Online TEFL/TESOL companies – companies that are used to chalking up fake 5-star reviews on those mainstream TEFL review platforms.

We allow all of the TEFL companies listed on Trusted TEFL Reviews to respond to reviews

All Online TEFL/TESOL companies listed on Trusted TEFL Reviews are free to respond to any review published about their program. The vast majority of programs choose not to, but some do. The most prolific company to respond to reviews – responding to every review they receive – is TEFL Online Pro. This company is proactive and recognizes the importance of thanking customers for writing positive reviews and addressing any issues presented by negative reviews. If an Online TEFL company writes that they tried responding to a review but were unsuccessful in doing so, it is a flat-out lie.

Russian review websites

A few months ago, an Online TEFL/TESOL company reached out to me – a company not listed on Trusted TEFL Reviews – complaining that their business wasn’t doing so well. They blamed their dwindling revenue on the many cheap Online TEFL/TESOL programs undercutting them with lower prices. They suggested that they would “handle the Google Ads campaigns” of those programs through a process known as click fraud. They also suggested that I should write some damning reviews about those programs on complaintsboard.com. I refused the offer and told the individual to focus on improving their course offerings and customer services. complaintsboard.com, dirtyscam.com, and ripoffreport.com are all Russian-owned websites. They may claim otherwise, but they operate outside of countries where they can be held accountable for the defamatory material that they allow to be published on their websites. I read one recent “complaint” that TEFL Online Pro is offering courses illegally and not paying their taxes. This, of course, is just fiction. I also read another “complaint” where someone had written that OISE University of Toronto TEFL is a scam and their certificates are not valid internationally. Also, fictitious. The rogue Online TEFL/TESOL companies use these websites to badmouth their business competitors because all you need to do to have your review published is to verify your email address – using any name to create an account. Those Russian websites feel protected from legal repercussions and they are the go-to websites for the dregs of the Online TEFL/TESOL certification course world.

TEFL companies that want to take over the world

The TEFL Academy (https://trustedteflreviews.com/category/the-tefl-academy/) is the perfect example of a company that wants it all, and they are willing to break all the better business rules to achieve their objective. We began listing this program on Trusted TEFL Reviews a few years ago. Within a couple of days, we received an avalanche of 5-star reviews for them, but not one of the reviewers was willing to prove course participation in The TEFL Academy program. They were fake reviews. We also have it on good word that this company reaches out to its graduates and offers them a free mini TEFL course if they write a positive review. This is why there is such a disconnect between their reviews on Trusted TEFL Reviews and their reviews on Facebook, Trustpilot, etc. World TESOL Academy (https://trustedteflreviews.com/category/world-tesol-academy/) is also guilty of this shameless and flagrant middle finger to the better business rules. They claim to be the “Worlds #1 TEFL Course Provider.” This obviously isn’t true, as are many other claims on their website.

Our advice for Online TEFL/TESOL companies

Interact with your customers! If you receive a positive review, thank the customer for spending their time to review your program. If you receive a negative review, apologize and try to right a wrong. Don’t write false sh*t about me or Trusted TEFL Reviews just because you got some negative feedback.

Our advice for Online TEFL/TESOL students

The Online TEFL/TESOL industry is unregulated and highly competitive. Some companies will swear blind to you that you need to take their course because it has more hours or because it has won so many awards. The Teachers’ Choice Award is the only Online TEFL/TESOL certification course program award that cannot be bought. The industry standard is a 120-hour TEFL/TESOL certification course (140 hours if it includes 20 teaching practice hours). You don’t need more training hours because those extra hours are meaningless for TEFL employers. If you pay less than US$100 for a 120-hour Online TEFL/TESOL certification course, you WILL regret it.

Accreditation

To prevent you from becoming a victim of a TEFL scam, we recommend that you choose a Fully Accredited TEFL/TESOL certification course provider.

The most well-known accreditation companies – offering Full Accreditation:

ACCET – Accrediting Council for Continuing Education and Training.

ACTEFLC – Accreditation Council for Teaching English as a Foreign Language Courses.

OISE – University of the Toronto Faculty of Education.

TESL Canada

University of Cambridge’s English Language Assessment

If you read anything negative about these organizations online, it has been written by an Online TEFL/TESOL program – a program that likely has no accreditation itself or one that simply pays a dodgy accreditation company an annual fee.

You can see which companies are Fully Accredited and internationally recognized by looking through the program listings in the TEFL Course Directory:

https://trustedteflreviews.com/tefl-course-directory/

The top-rated schools in the directory are top-rated for a legitimate reason.

The low-rated schools in the directory are low-rated for a legitimate reason.

Be smart. Don’t fall for the disinformation and misinformation.

Trusted TEFL Reviews


If and when we are notified of shady practices or even outright scams, we will post details of them in the Online TEFL Course Scams section of this website.


This ‘Online TEFL Course Reviews Scams’ article was originally written and published by Mia Williams, co-owner of Trusted TEFL Reviews (TTR) | Best Featured TEFL Articles


Related articles:

https://trustedteflreviews.com/2021/03/30/6-tefl-red-flags/

https://trustedteflreviews.com/2021/03/30/common-tefl-scams/


New! Click here for the online TEFL/TESOL international certification course Teachers’ Choice Award winner. International Online TEFL/TESOL course certification at its best.


Verified Online TEFL/TESOL certification course program reviews, ranked in order of customer satisfaction: TEFL Course Directory


TEFL Accreditation Guide | 6 TEFL Red Flags | TTR Home | TEFL Course Special Offers


The 5 Best Online TEFL & TESOL certification courses in 2023 & 2024 - trustedteflreviews.com

The post Online TEFL TESOL Course Review Scams in 2026 appeared first on Trusted TEFL Reviews.

]]>
https://trustedteflreviews.com/2025/02/07/online-tefl-course-review-scams/feed/ 12 2623
4 Worst TEFL Courses 2026 https://trustedteflreviews.com/2022/10/12/worst-tefl-courses-2022/ https://trustedteflreviews.com/2022/10/12/worst-tefl-courses-2022/#comments Wed, 12 Oct 2022 01:03:00 +0000 https://trustedteflreviews.com/?p=11815 4 Worst TEFL Courses 2026, written by Mia Williams – co-founder of Trusted TEFL Reviews. December 8, 2025 Notice: It has been brought to our attention that ITTT TEFL, My TEFL, and TTA The TEFL Academy have been offering their TEFL graduates free “bonus” courses (which are worthless) in return for writing a positive review […]

The post 4 Worst TEFL Courses 2026 appeared first on Trusted TEFL Reviews.

]]>
The 5 Best Online TEFL & TESOL certification courses in 2023 & 2024 - trustedteflreviews.com

4 Worst TEFL Courses 2026, written by Mia Williams – co-founder of Trusted TEFL Reviews.


December 8, 2025 Notice:

It has been brought to our attention that ITTT TEFL, My TEFL, and TTA The TEFL Academy have been offering their TEFL graduates free “bonus” courses (which are worthless) in return for writing a positive review on their Facebook pages and on the other review websites where they have hundreds of positive reviews.

This is the reason why ITTT TEFL, My TEFL, and TTA The TEFL Academy have such awful reviews on trustedteflreviews.com and amazing reviews on other platforms. This is a scam.


There are some excellent Online TEFL/TESOL certification course options out there, and there are some that you should avoid.

The best Online TEFL/TESOL certification courses come with excellent support and offer certificates that are Fully Accredited and internationally recognized.

The worst Online TEFL/TESOL certification courses lack sufficient student support and lack international recognition.

Here are the 4 worst TEFL courses in 2026, in all their upside down glory – starting at the 4th worst and continuing down to the worst of the worst:


4. ITTT International TEFL and TESOL Training

ITTT International TEFL and TESOL Training Fake accreditation

There are a few stand-out issues with the ITTT TEFL program:

  1. It employs aggressive affiliate marketers that hype up the course on platforms such as Quora. The most prolific of these is Linda Dunsmore – Marketing Manager at (yep, you guessed right) ITTT. Linda spams Quora with helpful posts about how she was an ITTT graduate and how the course worked for her. What she doesn’t come clean about, though, is that she is on the ITTT management marketing team.
  2. ITTT doesn’t just have one program website. Instead, it has more than 10 of them. They all look similar, but each contains slightly different claims and each looks different enough that the waters are muddied when it comes to pinpointing the true identity of the core company website.
  3. ITTT is a company headquartered in Thailand, and they are accredited by some pretty dodgy accreditation companies. One of these is OTTSA, and another is The Teacher Training Council. Both are registered in Thailand, and both have been exposed as fake accreditation websites. The Teacher Training Council can’t even spell “Accreditation” correctly. They spell it, “AccrediDation”.

ITTT International TEFL and TESOL Training is Accredited but is not Fully Accredited.

You can read further information about ITTT, including verified customer reviews, in the Trusted TEFL Reviews ITTT TEFL category: https://trustedteflreviews.com/category/ittt/


3. MyTEFL

The Third Worst TEFL Course in 2022 | MyTEFL

MyTEFL exploded into the Online TEFL training arena about 5 or 6 years ago.

It claims to have been around for a lot longer, but 5 or 6 years is a more realistic and honest assessment.

Students tend to like the course.

That’s where the positives end.

  1. MyTEFL is propped up by a fake accreditation body ( Online TESOL and TEFL Standards Agency – OTTSA) and another one that they recently created: the International TEFL Accreditation Council – ITEFLAC. New! MyTEFL is now also “accredited” by the International Council for Online Educational Standards (ICOES). ICOES also accredits such bastions of international education including, but not limited to, ‘Permanent Jewelry Bestie’ and ‘spray tan class’.
  2. Graduates regularly complain that they were ripped off by bait-and-switch scams on the job placements abroad that they accepted through MyTEFL and its parent company, Footprints Language Education Ltd. Teachers arrived to find that the accommodation and pay weren’t as promised, and some discovered that a percentage of their monthly salary was being deducted and paid back to MyTEFL/Footprints Language Education Ltd.
  3. MyTEFL has tried to have fake reviews published on Trusted TEFL Reviews and reacted very poorly when we refused to publish these unverified “customer” reviews. Its response was to launch a campaign against us, claiming that this review website is biased toward certain TEFL programs. They even went so far as to claim that Trusted TEFL Reviews is owned by OISE University of Toronto TEFL and/or TEFL Online Pro. Yep, the true sign of a reputable company is to attack the reviews site that refused to publish its fake “customer” reviews.

MyTEFL is Accredited but is not Fully Accredited.

You can read further information about MyTEFL, including verified customer reviews, in the Trusted TEFL Reviews MyTEFL category: https://trustedteflreviews.com/category/mytefl-blacklisted-warning/


2. TTA The TEFL Academy

TTA The TEFL Academy Company

This company is a car crash waiting to happen, so go grab your popcorn and a comfy couch.

TTA The TEFL Academy claims to be “Fully Accredited” by a few organizations, with one of these being DEAC.

We sent out an inquiry to DEAC yesterday, and they responded that TTA The TEFL Academy is not accredited by them.

The helpful people at DEAC directed us to a page on their website, where the public can check whether a TEFL program is listed in their database.

Here is that link: https://www.deac.org/Student-Center/Directory-Of-Accredited-Institutions.aspx

  1. TTA The TEFL Academy claims to be accredited by AQC, DEAC, QUALIFI, and even by Ofqual. It is accredited by no company. It is only regulated by Ofqual and QUALIFI, and it also appears that QUALIFI might have been created by the good folks at TTA The TEFL Academy.
  2. TTA the TEFL Academy has tried to have its staff-written reviews published on Trusted TEFL Reviews. Last year, one of its full-time Brand Ambassador employees became infuriated with me because I wouldn’t publish her review that read like a TTA TEFL brochure. What was her response? She said that Trusted TEFL Reviews is biased and began writing rubbish about me and my reviews site online. Oh, and, of course, she claims that Trusted TEFL Reviews is owned by TEFL Online Pro because it is the top-rated program on this site currently. And all because we wouldn’t publish her review.
  3. Despite having its headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, TTA The TEFL Academy certificates are not recognized for English teaching jobs in Ireland. In Malta neither. The one place where you are guaranteed to be able to use your TTA The TEFL Academy certificate is in the UK. Reviewers have complained about not being able to use their TTA The TEFL Academy certificates for some online teaching jobs and some overseas jobs.
  4. TTA The TEFL Academy aggressively promotes itself through a network of affiliate marketers – people who may or may not have taken one of its courses. These marketing minions earn a 20% referral fee every time someone books a TTA The TEFL Academy course through their affiliate website. This is one of the reasons why we feel that TTA The TEFL Academy courses are overpriced.

TTA The TEFL Academy is Unaccredited. It is neither Accredited nor Fully Accredited.

The TEFL Academy, via its network of Brand Ambassadors, aggressively pushes the notion that it is fully accredited and aggressively pushes the notion that some of the reputable organizations that are competitors are Fully Accredited are, in fact, fake. I hear defamation lawsuit bells ringing! 🙂

You can read further information about TTA The TEFL Academy, including verified customer reviews, in the Trusted TEFL Reviews The TEFL Academy category: https://trustedteflreviews.com/category/the-tefl-academy/


1. ESLinsider

The Worst TEFL Course in 2022 | ESLinsider

The popcorn and couch time might have already passed with this program because our research has shown that ESLinsider is not a full-time-functioning TEFL program anymore.

I spent a lazy Sunday searching through the many Reddit user names of the owner of ESLinsider TEFL (Ian Patrick Leahy) and I read how he returned from Japan to New Hampshire because his website wasn’t doing so well. In the two years since then, Ian has worked on ski and snowboarding slopes in New Hampshire and Montana.

It appears that he is now planning on working a summer season this year in Oregon.

I also read some of Ian’s Reddit questions – enquiring about traveling to either Chile or New Zealand for under-the-table paid work.

Why does ESLinsider come in at number 1 for the worst TEFL courses in 2026?

  1. Ian Patrick Leahy began the ESLinsider TEFL program because he hated teaching English and wanted to earn a quick buck by running online TEFL courses, which he called TEKA courses. The problem was that he didn’t have enough experience or knowledge to even teach, never mind running a training program. This didn’t deter Ian and he soldiered on, creating linguistic minefield disasters as his objective grew.
  2. He was clever in one respect. He created a blog for ESLinsider, where he tried to convey the impression that he was an ESL expert. He also “reviewed” his competitor’s TEFL programs (which he never even paid and took) and wrote critical feedback on them – all the while linking back to his blog and to his ESLinsider course. This meant that you could Google any well-known Online TEFL program and you would see ESLinsider’s take on it. The obvious reason for spending so much of his time doing this was that he hoped to convince people that his TEFL course was better and that they should pay him to take his course. His MO is to claim that such and such a course or person is a “scam”, “fake”, “fraud”, etc. He also went after reputable accreditation bodies – after all, his courses were unaccredited so he had to try and angle it that accreditation bodies are all fake.
  3. Ian (ESLinsider) was the first TEFL program that we received a fake review and it was the first time that a TEFL program retaliated against us for not publishing its fake review. Ian Patrick Leahy from ESLinsider was the person who began the misinformation that Trusted TEFL Reviews is biased and owned by CIEE TEFL, OISE University of Toronto TEFL, and TEFL Online Pro. Of course, this is not true.
  4. He is also alleged to have conned his paying customers out of their money. This is one example of a group of Ian Patrick Leahy’s ESLinsider TEFL students, who were left out of pocket by Ian:

ESLinsider is Unaccredited. It is neither Accredited nor Fully Accredited.

You can read further information about ESLinsider, including verified customer reviews, in the Trusted TEFL Reviews ESLinsider category: https://trustedteflreviews.com/category/eslinsider-tefl/


Our Tip!

To avoid falling victim to a TEFL scam, check how high or low a program is ranked in the TEFL Course Directory: https://trustedteflreviews.com/tefl-course-directory/

The top-rated schools in the directory are top-rated for a legitimate reason.

You can also check the TEFL Accreditation Guide, to see which organizations provide Fully Accredited certificates: https://trustedteflreviews.com/tefl-accreditation-guide/


Worst TEFL Courses 2026 related links:

ITTT TEFL Accreditation: https://trustedteflreviews.com/2022/03/23/ittt-tefl-accreditation/

TTA The TEFL Academy Scam Warning: https://trustedteflreviews.com/2019/03/25/the-tefl-academy-certification-review/

The MyTEFL Scam: https://trustedteflreviews.com/2020/01/24/the-mytefl-com-scam/

The ESLinsider Scam: https://trustedteflreviews.com/2020/02/03/eslinsider-reviews-scam/

Affiliate Marketing Scam: https://trustedteflreviews.com/2022/02/07/tefl-affiliate-marketing-scam/


December 1st, 2025 Update:

World TESOL Academy must also be added to this Worst TEFL Courses 2026 list:

https://trustedteflreviews.com/category/world-tesol-academy/


New! Click here for the online TEFL/TESOL international certification course Teachers’ Choice Award winner. International Online TEFL/TESOL course certification at its best.


Verified Online TEFL/TESOL certification course program reviews, ranked in order of customer satisfaction: Courses Directory


The post 4 Worst TEFL Courses 2026 appeared first on Trusted TEFL Reviews.

]]>
https://trustedteflreviews.com/2022/10/12/worst-tefl-courses-2022/feed/ 1 11815