TTA The TEFL Academy | Fact-checked

Written by Mia Williams – co-owner of trustedteflreviews.com

It is said that a magician’s best friend is a drunk audience.

Well, please allow me to sober you up to the reality of the magic tricks of TTA The TEFL Academy.

FYI, this program also operates as Everything TEFL Ltd.

This article will peel away the facade of its accreditation claims, will question the legitimacy of its philanthropic work in the Nepalese community, will highlight its ongoing business operations in Russia, and will expose how this TEFL company uses its vast marketing budget to perpetuate the illusion that it has hundreds of thousands of TEFL graduates teaching all over the world.

There is, of course, also the question of its fake reviews – also covered in this article.

Let us begin this sobering-up process by looking at a few screenshots from its company website.

Btw, those reviews in the screenshot, listed under “Accreditation Partners”, are from reviews.co.uk. That site is infamous for deleting negative reviews in return for payment and letting fake positive reviews remain published without any quality control verification oversight.

Fake TEFL Accreditation

It claims that QUALIFI, DEAC, and AQC are its “Accreditation Partners”.

QUALIFI is a UK-based organization that APPROVES courses and institutions.

It approves hair, beauty, wellness, and aesthetics courses, and it also approves TTA The TEFL Academy’s courses.

“Approval” is not the same as “accredited”.

Even if it did (in another dimension somewhere in the universe) accredit its courses, would any employer really take its accreditation seriously when it also accredits hair, beauty, wellness, and aesthetics?

If an organization had the authority to accredit courses and institutions, don’t you think that it would use the term as often as it could on its company website?

QUALIFI uses the term “accreditation” zero times on its company website.

Instead, it uses the word “approved”.

“Approved” is NOT the same level of authority and recognition as “accredited”.

Are you sobering up a little now?

Let’s proceed!

DEAC DOES accredit courses and institutions.

I can sense that you are thinking that there may be a catch here because this article is exposing TTA The TEFL Academy for (among other infractions) false accreditation claims.

And, yes, you would be correct to be suspicious.

Two in a row!

All it takes is a few clicks to confirm that it is not accredited by DEAC.

Here is a screenshot from the DEAC website – its directory of accredited institutions:

The TEFL Academy is not in the directory, and is, therefore, not accredited by DEAC.

If it were, it would be listed in the directory.

AQC appears to be a sister organization of DEAC.

How can I know this?

Well, DEAC devotes a chunk of its website footer to AQC.

Does AQC accredit courses and institutions?

No.

How do I know this?

It is stated on the DEAC/AQC website:

And here is the listing for TTA The TEFL Academy, as an approved center, on the AQC website:

Three out of three strikes.

Bingo!

Trusted TEFL Reviews reached out to QUALIFI, DEAC, and AQC for comment.

DEAC promised to get back to us. This was two weeks ago.

AQC failed to respond to our request for further information.

QUALIFI had the gall to write that approval is the same as accreditation.

We had an email back and forth with QUALIFI for a week and we discovered that it could be very probable that QUALIFI and TTA The TEFL Academy are connected companies, which would be, if true, a textbook example of a clear conflict of interest.

When we asked whether QUALIFI is a sister company of the TEFL Academy, we were warned that no further emails would be answered.

Let’s now take a look at some more screenshots from the homepage of the TEFL Academy’s website:

Fake TEFL Awards

It is a bit ironic that the TEFL Academy has spent the latter half of this year complaining that teflonlinepro.com has won the Teachers’ Choice Award seven years in a row – 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 – and then miraculously, the TEFL Academy also (very recently) began promoting its “award wins” for the same years.

You should now be almost sober, so this explanation will be easier to digest – despite its underlying complexity.

goabroad.com and gooverseas.com are two TEFL course and TEFL travel websites that earn revenue by promoting TEFL programs and TEFL job placements on their websites – rarely can you trust any of the reviews published on either platforms.

Some Trusted TEFL Reviews reviewers have complained that their negative review of the TEFL program they took was deleted from either goabroad.com or gooverseas.com, so they chose to have it published on trustedteflreviews.com instead.

trustedteflreviews.com is a non-profit website and we publish every positive and negative TEFL course review that has been verified as having been written by a real TEFL course student/graduate.

goabroad.com and gooverseas.com are for-profit websites, and it is in their business model interests to publish positive reviews and hide negative reviews.

It, therefore, logically follows that any awards dished out by both these websites have a monetary motive – for both of the websites and for the TEFL program that won the award and which likely paid a substantial amount of money to “win” the award.

The Teachers’ Choice Award (https://trustedteflreviews.com/2023/12/04/the-teachers-international-online-tefl-tesol-certification-course-choice-award-winner/) on the other hand, is a non-profit award that is based entirely on merit.

Trusted TEFL Reviews asks language schools, universities, current English teachers, and recent Online TEFL/TESOL course graduates to take part in the Online TEFL/TESOL international certification course Teachers’ Choice Award, by voting for their favorite Online TEFL/TESOL international certification course program.

TTA The TEFL Academy (https://trustedteflreviews.com/category/the-tefl-academy/) likely won its awards by handing over a large bag of unaccredited TEFL course cash.

We are 100% certain that TEFL Online Pro (https://trustedteflreviews.com/category/tefl-online-pro-teachers-choice-award-winner-2024/) won its awards by being voted the best Fully Accredited Online TEFL/TESOL certification course provider.

Fake TEFL Reviews

We know with absolute certainty that the TEFL Academy is involved in the mass faking of its company reviews.

How can I be so certain of this?

Last year, and a part of the year before that – just after the TEFL Academy brought in a new Marketing Manager (Thomas Gibbons) Trusted TEFL Reviews began receiving an unusually large amount of reviews for this program.

In one week, we received something like 30 reviews for the TEFL Academy.

Out of those 30 reviews, just one (1) was verified as being written by someone who had taken the course.

The remaining 29 all came from the same IP address in Dublin, Ireland, where TTA The TEFL Academy has its headquarters.

The remaining 29 reviews were written by school staff and by its Brand Ambassadors.

This appears to be a pattern in TEFL Academy’s marketing campaigns online.

They show photos of people who work for them and claim that they are, instead, English teachers living the best time of their lives.

Btw, when you read a review that states that the TEFL course was “amazing” or “extraordinary”, you must know that it is a fake review or that the person writing the review has been paid for writing the review.

TTA The TEFL Academy incentivizes its graduates to write positive reviews – sending out a mass email each week to its recent grads – with the quid-pro-quo offer of a free mini TEFL course, such as a Teaching Business English course.

Such an example of a review that has been written by the TEFL Academy, or written by a graduate of the program that has been offered a free course for writing a review:

Russia TEFL Money | TTA The TEFL Academy

Now that you are fully sober, it might be time to have a shot because what follows makes me feel angry and repulsed.

TTA The TEFL Academy still makes money from its business operations and partnerships in Russia.

This Google Ads screenshot was taken earlier today:

Spending money on Google Ads to maintain its business operations and partnerships in Russia.

The Google Ad takes you to these pages on the TEFL Academy website:

As of May 19th, its Russian Jobs page and its TEFL Fact-Book Russia page are still live on theteflacademy.com site.

I have sent TTA an email, today May 19th, imploring them to take down both pages from the website.

May 20th, 2022 UPDATE

TTA The TEFL Academy has stopped its paid Google Ads for its TEFL courses in Russia.

It is, however, still promoting Russia as a teaching destination on its school website, where it states that it has a school located in Moscow.

TTA The TEFL Academy | Conclusion

Should this company be avoided for all of the above reasons? We will leave this up to you to decide for yourselves.

This is not financial advice, but we have received credible first-hand reports of TTA TEFL students getting full refunds on their course purchases because they were able to prove to their bank or PayPal that the course is not accredited.

1. You could contact TTA the TEFL Academy and ask to cancel your TEFL course and ask for a full course refund. It might take up to two weeks to get a reply from them, but you would need to provide proof to your bank that you have requested a refund. Take a screenshot of the refund request.
2. You could contact your bank or PayPal and instigate a chargeback. The reason you could give is that you didn’t receive the goods that you paid for. If pressed further, you can quote passages in this article and the financial institution could agree that the TEFL Academy is misrepresenting itself by claiming it is accredited.
3. You could choose a Fully Accredited TEFL/TESOL certification course that you can use for all online and in-person international teaching jobs.

Take a look at the Trusted TEFL Reviews TEFL Course Directory:

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

The top-rated programs are top-rated for a legitimate reason.

For all accreditation questions:

https://trustedteflreviews.com/2023/12/03/best-tefl-accreditation/

https://trustedteflreviews.com/tefl-accreditation-guide/

June 10th, 2022 UPDATE

Who is your money going to when you pay for an Unaccredited TEFL course with this company?

Your money is, in large part, financing the lifestyles of two men who are originally from Brighton, England.

Andy Norman and Rhyan O’Sullivan.

Tom (Thomas) Gibbons is responsible for the day-to-day running of the business. I have read some of his online material – defamatory attacks against the TEFL Academy’s competitors – and I was immediately struck by just how badly written his posts were. Tom isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed.

I found this (two-page) press release online:

There is no evidence, whatsoever, that other TEFL companies “copied” Tom Gibbon’s TEFL webinars.

If you are convinced to take a course with this company, please do ask them exactly how much of your course fee will be donated to the charity that they promote so heavily on their program website.

Ask for proof (receipt) of the charitable donation.

Call me skeptical, but it is difficult to believe anything that is claimed to be true by this Unaccredited TEFL program.

August 23rd, 2022 UPDATE

Lo and behold! We stumbled across an About Me webpage for TTA The TEFL Academy, and it contains some very interesting information.

The TEFL Academy used to be “accredited” by WTEFLAC – a known fake TEFL accreditation website.

TTA The TEFL Academy has gone from having fake accreditation to having no accreditation.

Essential TEFL Tip!

Are you worried about being scammed? TEFL course scams are becoming more sophisticated, and (TTA) The TEFL Academy has been proven to be a scam!

Protect yourself from TEFL scams.

We strongly recommend choosing from one of the 5 Best Online TEFL/TESOL certification course programs in 2026:

The 5 Best Online TEFL/TESOL Courses in 2026

By choosing from one of the 5 Best Online TEFL/TESOL Certification Course Programs, you are guaranteed not to be scammed.

Choose a fully accredited and internationally recognized online TEFL/TESOL certification course that you can use for all online and abroad teaching English jobs.

Mia Williams – Trusted TEFL Reviews

Related article: https://trustedteflreviews.com/2019/03/25/the-tefl-academy-certification-review/

Read more The TEFL Academy reviews

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 post TTA The TEFL Academy appeared first on Trusted TEFL Reviews.

This ‘The TEFL Academy certification review’ article uncovers the extremes that this program will go to, to present and maintain a positive public image. Fake Reviews | Affiliate Links | Ambassador Program | False Accreditation Claims.

The TEFL Academy certification review. This article was last updated on September 14, 2025.

The TEFL Academy (TTA) is not a legitimate online TEFL/TESOL certification company.

The TEFL Academy (TTA) is not a fully accredited online TEFL/TESOL certification course program.

Despite its website claims, TTA The TEFL Academy is Unaccredited. This is a TEFL scam.

Trusted TEFL Reviews recommends avoiding The TEFL Academy (TTA).

Think about it. Would you employ someone who presents a TEFL certificate at a job interview that isn’t accredited?

After reading this article, we recommend reading:

https://trustedteflreviews.com/2022/05/19/tta-the-tefl-academy/

Trusted TEFL Reviews’ advice is to invest in a Fully Accredited TEFL/TESOL certificate that will be recognized for all online and abroad teaching English jobs.

Essential TEFL Tip!

Are you worried about being scammed? TEFL course scams are becoming more sophisticated, and (TTA) The TEFL Academy has been proven to be a scam!

Protect yourself from TEFL scams.

We strongly recommend choosing from one of the 5 Best Online TEFL/TESOL certification course programs in 2026:

The 5 Best Online TEFL/TESOL Courses in 2026

By choosing from one of the 5 Best Online TEFL/TESOL Certification Course Programs, you are guaranteed not to be scammed.

Choose a fully accredited and internationally recognized online TEFL/TESOL certification course that you can use for all online and abroad teaching English jobs.

Mia Williams – Trusted TEFL Reviews

8th June 2022 UPDATE:

TTA The TEFL Academy – Fake TEFL Accreditation | Fake TEFL Awards | Fake TEFL Reviews | False TEFL Advertising:

https://trustedteflreviews.com/2022/05/19/tta-the-tefl-academy/

The main reasons for this Buyer Beware Warning:

1. This program has attempted, on several occasions, to get reviews written by their staff employees published on Trusted TEFL Reviews. Trusted TEFL Reviews only publishes verified Online TEFL/TESOL customer reviews – we don’t publish fictitious reviews, self-written by Online TEFL/TESOL programs.
2. The TEFL Academy (TTA) claims to be accredited by a bunch of “external bodies” but these are only regulatory bodies – AQC | DEAC | OfQual | QUALIFI. The TEFL Academy (TTA) is only regulated by the bodies that it claims accredit them.

The TEFL Academy (TTA) provides unaccredited Online TEFL/TESOL certification courses, that are only recognized within the United Kingdom and Ireland. This is further backed up by the poor The TEFL Academy (TTA) verified student reviews: https://trustedteflreviews.com/category/the-tefl-academy/

Instead, we recommend choosing to take your international TEFL/TESOL certification course with a program offering a fully accredited course that is far more recognized internationally than The TEFL Academy’s.

The four highest-rated TEFL Academy TTA fully accredited alternative course options, listed in order of customer review ratings:

1. TEFL Online Pro – https://teflonlinepro.com/
2. OISE Toronto TEFL – https://teflonline.teachaway.com/
3. CIEE TEFL – https://www.ciee.org/
4. Maximo Nivel TEFL – https://maximonivel.com/

CIEE TEFL, Maximo Nivel, OISE Toronto TEFL, and TEFL Online Pro are Level 5 and CELTA-equivalent Online TEFL/TESOL certification programs.

TEFL Online Pro verified customer reviews:

https://trustedteflreviews.com/category/tefl-online-pro-reviews-in-2025

OISE Toronto TEFL verified customer reviews:

https://trustedteflreviews.com/category/oise-university-of-toronto-tefl/

CIEE TEFL verified customer reviews:

https://trustedteflreviews.com/category/ciee-tefl/

Maximo Nivel verified customer reviews:

https://trustedteflreviews.com/category/maximo-nivel-tefl/

CIEE TEFL, Maximo Nivel, OISE Toronto TEFL, and TEFL Online Pro certificates are Fully Accredited and internationally recognized. The TEFL Academy TTA certificates are not fully accredited and are not internationally recognized.

TEFL Online Pro has won the Teachers’ Choice Award in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025:

https://trustedteflreviews.com/teachers-choice-award-winner-2019-2/

All 56 Online TEFL/TESOL certification course programs are currently listed on Trusted TEFL Reviews, ranked in order of customer satisfaction: https://trustedteflreviews.com/tefl-course-directory/

More on The TEFL Academy scam: https://trustedteflreviews.com/2021/07/26/common-tefl-scams/

The TEFL Academy certification review.

19th May 2021 UPDATE:

The TEFL Academy has been exposed by The TEFL Watchdog, for falsely claiming to telephone inquiries from prospective students that The TEFL Academy is accredited by Ofqual. When further questioned on this false claim of Ofqual accreditation – in two separate telephone calls – both TEFL Academy sales reps put the phone down on The TEFL Watchdog.

It does need to be clarified that the TEFL Academy sales reps assumed that they were having a conversation with real prospective students, and had no idea that they were speaking with members of The TEFL Watchdog.

Further details can be read in the ‘X TEFL Watchdog’ section of Trusted TEFL Reviews:

https://trustedteflreviews.com/category/x-tefl-watchdog/

Trusted TEFL Reviews would like to repeat that The TEFL Academy (theteflacademy.com) is not a fully accredited and internationally recognized TEFL certification program.

If you telephone The TEFL Academy and ask who accredits them, they will reply that they are accredited by Ofqual. This is a lie. Ofqual is a regulatory body and not an accreditation body.

If you press The TEFL Academy further on this bogus accreditation claim, they will likely put the phone down on you.

The TEFL Academy Level 5 TEFL certificates are only recognized within Ireland and the United Kingdom. Try using the certificate anywhere else, and you will likely be met with puzzled looks by school employers and government work visa officers.

25th April 2022 UPDATE:

A distraught customer sent Trusted TEFL Reviews a carbon copy of an email from The TEFL Academy, which explicitly states that TEFL Academy certificates are not recognized in Ireland. They also state that its certificates are not recognized in Malta.

Given that the TEFL Academy’s main office is in Dublin, Ireland, it puzzles us as to why its certificates are not recognized in the country in which it is headquartered.

Go figure!

The TEFL Academy Certification review.

This is a long, informative article that we recommend reading through from start to finish before purchasing a TEFL Academy/TTA ‘Level 5’ Online TEFL/TESOL course.

We will be looking at this program’s “accreditation” claims, how this program floods the internet with fake reviews, this program’s ‘Brand Ambassador’ program, and the dirty tricks that The TEFL Academy employs to inflict damage on its competitors.

The TEFL Academy certification review.

The TEFL Academy Certification Review Part I: Fake Reviews and the Spreading of Misinformation.

1. The TEFL Academy (TTA) brought in a new Marketing Director, Thomas Gibbons, in 2021.
2. Not long afterward, Trusted TEFL Reviews (TTR) began receiving a lot of unverified TTA reviews, supposedly written by students of TTA. None of the reviewers could prove course participation. TTR took the correct decision not to publish the reviews because there was no way of knowing if TTA graduates had written the review, or whether employees of TTA had.
3. These reviews have since been published on other TEFL review websites, where there exists little or no verification process. Such websites include TrustPilot and Reviews.co.uk
4. Thomas Gibbons contacted TTR to ask if we could delete a (verified) TTA negative student review on TTR. When we said that we wouldn’t, Thomas began pressuring TTR for a face-to-face video call. TTR politely declined the request.
5. In March of this year, an individual left a review for TTA on TTR. The review was flagged for containing commercial content, and we soon discovered that the individual works for The TEFL Academy as one of their ‘Brand Ambassadors’ – earning 20% of all TTA courses purchased through their website. When we took a look at their website, we saw a website set up to sell TTA courses and a website full of exaggerated promises and misleading facts – such as the claim that teachers can earn $100 per hour teaching English online, and the claim that teachers don’t need a college degree to teach in South Korea. This Brand Ambassador has since branched out – reviewing TEFL programs that they have zero first-hand knowledge or experience of and earning a 20% affiliate’s fee on each referral in the process.
6. In response to our refusal to publish the aforementioned reviews, TTA decided to attack TTR. They have done this in two different ways:

1. Through Black Hat SEO. As a direct result of our refusal to publish the aforementioned reviews, TTR has been receiving a large number of spam emails from x-rated websites. We know that this is because of TTA because we began receiving these emails exactly from the time just after we exposed their Brand Ambassador for submitting commercial content to TTR.
2. TTA has begun spreading the lie, via one of their Brand Ambassador’s websites – the Brand Ambassador whose review was flagged for commercial content – that TTR is run by TEFL Online Pro. This is a blatant lie and is one more inaccuracy on their commercial website. With regards to this second point:

Ian Leahy from ESLinsider was the person who first started spreading the lie that TTR is run by TEFL Online Pro. ESLinsider has also claimed that TTR is run by OISE University of Toronto.

Ian is notorious within the TEFL world for spamming the internet with his conspiracy theories. Pick any Online TEFL program – Ian will have written some trash about it in the past.

This is likely the reason why Ian Leahy and his ESLinsider TEFL program have been banned from Facebook.

Ian Leahy from ESLinsider is also famous in the TEFL world for his scams and deception. Just Google ‘ESLinsider Scams Asia’ and you will discover a treasure trove of complaints and warnings.

This, btw, is the same (Ian Leahy) ESLinsider that has been exposed for making illegal purchases with the credit card details of some of his clients and being indirectly responsible for the imprisonment of Western teachers in China.

You can read all about Ian Leahy’s ESLinsider well-documented scam here: https://trustedteflreviews.com/2020/02/03/eslinsider-reviews-scam/

It just makes us feel so frustrated when TEFL programs behave this way – spreading false rumors about TTR online – because we originally established TTR to be a genuine source of trusted TEFL reviews. Some TEFL programs are so used to being able to manipulate the review websites, where they have affiliate marketing agreements, that they don’t seem to know how to behave when they are faced with an authentic review website.

TTR has noticed a pattern in behavior: A TEFL program asks for a (verified) negative review to be deleted from TTR, TTR refuses to delete the review, and the TEFL program responds with attempts at reducing the credibility of TRR – thereby, hoping to reduce the credibility of the negative review.

A few TEFL programs have chosen this path: ESLinsider, Henry Harvin Education, ITTT TEFL, MyTEFL, TEFL Fullcircle, The TEFL Academy, World TESOL Academy.

TEFL Online Pro seems to be the favored target of these attacks, given that TEFL Online Pro is an award-winning program on TTR. OISE University of Toronto TEFL, CIEE TEFL, and Maximo Nivel TEFL have also been the targets of similar claims. What do all these programs have in common? They are the highest-rated Online TEFL TESOL programs on TTR.

It is rather coincidental that when some Online TEFL programs receive negative reviews on TTR, they claim that the site is biased against them. And it is rather coincidental that the top-rated Online TEFL programs are the ones that are claimed to be the owners of TTR.

TTR is an independently run Online TEFL/TESOL reviews website. We are not affiliated, in any way, with any of the Online TEFL/TESOL certification programs listed on this site.

If an Online TEFL/TESOL certification program has a high rating on TTR, it means that they are doing something right when it comes to the product it offers and how it treats its customers.

If an Online TEFL/TESOL certification program has a low rating on TTR, it means that they are doing something wrong when it comes to the product it offers and how it treats its customers.

The TEFL Academy Certification Review Part II: False Claims Regarding Accreditation and the Recognition of The TEFL Academy Courses.

TTA TEFL boldly claims that their Level 5 TEFL courses are Ofqual and TQUK accredited. They also claim that they are ‘Accreditation Partners’ with QUALIFI, DEAC, and AQC.

QUALIFI, DEAC, and AQC are organizations that simply confirm that a course meets certain criteria, whereby the student can be assured that they are receiving the education that is advertised by the course provider, i.e. they check if what TTA claims they are teaching in their courses is what TTA is providing to their customers. So whilst TTA claims that they are accredited by these organizations, they are not. At most, they should state that they are loosely regulated by them.

TTA also claims, on the TTA school website, that TTA is accredited by Ofqual and TQUK, and that a ‘Level 5’ TEFL certificate is the same as taking the 4-week, in-class CELTA certification course.

Ofqual and TQUK are often (incorrectly) claimed to accredit Online TEFL programs offering a ‘Level 5’ certificate. Some Level 5 programs even go as far as to claim that the Level 5 TEFL certificate is the same as the CELTA certificate. ‘Level 5’ refers to one of the levels on the Regulated Qualifications Framework (RQF) in Great Britain and Northern Ireland. In other words, it’s a United Kingdom qualification that means very little to anyone outside of the UK. Furthermore, a qualification assessed at Level 5 doesn’t mean that it is “equivalent to the CELTA qualification”. Instead, it means that the level of education, knowledge, and skills required to complete the course is the same as that required to complete the CELTA, i.e., to be over 18, and to have a level of English and education that is equivalent to the average UK high school graduate.

Ofqual and TQUK are regulatory bodies, not accreditation bodies.

A TEFL program can be regulated by Ofqual and be accredited or fully accredited by an external accreditation body, but this is not always the case.

Several Ofqual-regulated TEFL programs blatantly lie to their customers by claiming that they are Ofqual accredited, or lie and claim that they are Ofqual regulated and fully accredited by another body that only regulates courses.

The TEFL Academy is a good example of this.

The TEFL Academy – https://trustedteflreviews.com/category/the-tefl-academy/ – claims to be accredited by Ofqual, QUALIFI, and DEAC.

All three of these bodies are regulatory, not accreditation bodies. The TEFL Academy is neither accredited nor fully accredited. They are Unaccredited.

Ofqual and TQUK-regulated courses should provide you with a high level of TEFL training (although this is by no means guaranteed) but Ofqual and TQUK are by no means of the stretch of the imagination accreditation bodies.

The TEFL Academy, though, carries out its business practices in such a shady manner that we can see that they fail to follow the most basic of the strict guidelines that you would expect an Ofqual-regulated course should follow.

More information on Online TEFL/TESOL accreditation can be found in The Accreditation Guide: https://trustedteflreviews.com/tefl-accreditation-guide/

Part III: Affiliate links/Brand Ambassadors.

Since the arrival of Thomas Gibbons, TTA has aggressively adopted the affiliate’s marketing model.

Like some other Online TEFL programs, such as MyTEFL, TTA also uses ShareASale to gain an advantage in the market.

If you Google search ‘The TEFL Academy reviews’ you will find unverified reviews on the reviews websites that we have already mentioned at the beginning of this article, and you will also find websites that have been created solely to sell TEFL courses through affiliate marketing.

There are two types of TTA affiliate marketing websites:

1. A travel blogger writes articles about many different TEFL course providers and agrees to also write an article about TTA. This person has never been a TTA customer and, therefore, knows nothing about the TTA customer experience. This person writes an article about TTA, and included in the article is a promo code – where the reader can get a TTA course discount when they use the promo code at checkout. The blog owner receives a commission on each sale when their promo code is used.
2. A TTA Brand Ambassador – a sales rep for TTA – creates a website in the guise of someone wanting to help people with useful teaching tips and other TEFL/Teaching-related information. They begin reviewing other TEFL programs and also some online teaching platforms. The sole purpose of the website is to get people to click on a link, where the ‘Brand Ambassador’ receives a “small commission” for recommending TTA courses. This small commission is 20% of the sale. This means that if you pay €448 for your TEFL Academy course, you are paying The TEFL Academy €358 and you are paying the Brand Ambassador a finder’s fee of €90.

The big problem with people writing about a product that they may or may not have taken when they are motivated by the money that they could be receiving from what they have written is that they tend to exaggerate what the product or service can do for you. We have witnessed this with posts and websites created for TTA courses – unrealistic claims, and outright lies, about the results of taking a TTA certification course.

TTA’s Brand Ambassadors have two roles:

1. Sell TTA courses through affiliate links and receive a 20% commission on every sale.
2. Write negative things about the TTA competition, and in doing so strengthen the brand awareness of TTA courses and earn a 20% commission if someone believes what has been written and decides to buy a TTA course through the Brand Ambassador’s website. The Brand Ambassador knows that by writing a critical post about a TTA competitor, it will show up in search results for that competitor. And TTA helps the post climb to the top of the search results by asking all of their affiliate partners to link to that particular post in their travel blogs. This is what is known as ‘link farming’. And this last point now leads us to the final part of this article – the part where we dish out some karmic justice.

Trusted TEFL Reviews recently published a TEFL Affiliate Marketing Scam article:

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

Part IV: The TEFL Academy vs. TEFL Online Pro.

Since The TEFL Academy insists on carrying out a prolonged attack on Trusted TEFL Reviews – claiming that we are owned by TEFL Online Pro – we thought it only fair to dish out a bit of karmic justice and briefly compare TTA with the TEFL program competitor whom they are currently spreading false information about online.

Having extensively looked through both The TEFL Academy and TEFL Online Pro school websites, we can conclude that:

1. Both programs offer identical courses in terms of what is included in each course syllabus. This means that the information taught in TTA’s ‘Level 5’ 168-hour course is equal to the information taught in TEFL Online Pro’s 120-hour TEFL/TESOL course.
2. Both programs appear to offer identical support services.
3. The TEFL Academy is ‘Unaccredited/Regulated’ and TEFL Online Pro is ‘Fully Accredited, and internationally recognized’.
4. TEFL Online Pro has won the Teachers’ Choice Award seven years in a row – 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |2024 | 2025.
5. The TEFL Academy relies on affiliate marketing to win new customers. TEFL Online Pro doesn’t use affiliate marketing.
6. TEFL Online Pro is a more affordable option than The TEFL Academy.

If we had to choose between The TEFL Academy and TEFL Online Pro, we would choose to take our international TEFL/TESOL certification course with teflonlinepro.com.

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Part V: The TEFL Academy and it’s close business comptitors

You can tell a lot about a person by the friends they have.

The TEFL Academy acts more like a cartel than a professional online TEFL certification program.

It’s sicarios are its affiliste marketers; two of which are Caitriona McTiernan and Megan Boroccoli.

This ‘The TEFL Academy Certification Review’ article was brought to you by Mia Williams at Trusted TEFL Reviews.

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

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The post The TEFL Academy certification review appeared first on Trusted TEFL Reviews.

TPR Teaching Caitriona Maria

This is (sigh) yet another example of an online TEFL company behaving badly, and is yet another reason why The TEFL Academy (https://www.theteflacademy.com/) remains on the Trusted TEFL Reviews scam list (https://trustedteflreviews.com/category/x-online-tefl-course-scams/) of online TEFL/TESOL course providers that act unethically and misrepresent themselves to TEFL students.

Back in March 2021, Trusted TEFL Reviews received a TEFL Academy review that contained a lot of marketing language. When it was decided that the review was in direct contradiction to our review submission guidelines, we took the decision not to publish the review.

The review had been submitted by Caitriona McTiernan, who likes to go by the online alias “Caitriona Maria”.

When we decided not to publish Caitriona’s review, due to the fact that she works for The TEFL Academy, that should really have been the end of the story.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t.

Caitriona took offense. Was seemingly outraged. Acted as though it was our obligation to publish her keyword-packed The TEFL Academy review.

Intrigued, Trusted TEFL Reviews took a look at Caitriona’s blog, and we noticed a few important elements:

1. The homepage of the website has been designed to give the impression that TPR Teaching is a source of basic information for English teachers, looking for handy teaching tips.
2. The website strongly recommends The TEFL Academy online TEFL course, which, btw, is not a fully accredited TEFL program.
3. The website recommends some very shady online TEFL courses which are similarly not accredited or internationally recognized.
4. Caitriona writes about TEFL locations around the world, but a lot of her information is either inaccurate or misleading.

One more thing that we noticed, a few weeks after Trusted TEFL Reviews declined to publish Caitriona’s The TEFL Academy review, was a scathing attack on Trusted TEFL Reviews by Caitriona “Maria” McTiernan.

When we looked closer, we saw that Caitriona simply copied the misinformation spread by Ian Leahy, from ESLinsider. Ian Leahy is notorious within the TEFL industry for publishing rubbish online about his business competition. More about Ian Leahy and ESLinsider:

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

Of all the TEFL programs to aspire to, The TEFL Academy and Caitriona “Maria” McTiernan couldn’t have picked a worse one in ESLinsider TEFL.

Caitriona is relatively young and we initially didn’t feel comfortable publishing a post about her shilling of The TEFL Academy. However, over time, we have noticed how shrewd she is and how invested she is in promoting The TEFL Academy through outright lies.

Therefore, we feel that this post is a public service for any future TEFL students who may stumble across her blog and who will likely be unaware of the behind-the-scenes hidden agenda of Caitriona’s website.

Incidentally, Caitriona only began her website in early 2020 and it already enjoys quite a significant Google ranking presence. We assume that this is because The TEFL Academy clandestinely promotes it behind the scenes, through link farming techniques.

So, therefore, the TPR Teaching website, owned and operated by Caitriona “Maria” McTiernan, is simply an extension of The TEFL Academy’s business model.

Caitriona has been a TEFL Academy student and is completely welcome to write what she likes about her experience of the program, despite the fact that she mentions things like it is a “highly accredited course”.

However, she also earns money by recommending other TEFL programs that she has no direct experience of and which she earns an affiliate’s commission from each time an unwitting person buys a TEFL course through her website.

For example, Caitriona praises and promotes the MyTEFL online TEFL program.

MyTEFL has also been exposed for their fake accreditation and the way that they misrepresent their job placement services to their TEFL graduates:

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

The TEFL industry is full of individuals who see an opportunity of making some affiliates marketing money by recommending courses that they know very little about.

Caitriona is one of these people.

It is not positive for the industry, and it is not positive for the TEFL students who suddenly find out one day that their TEFL certificate course was a waste of money when an employer or government agency declines their job or visa application.

This is all that we are going to write as of this point because I personally feel that I have summed everything up already.

What I will do now is complete this article with images and comments, which further cement the fact that websites such as TPR Teaching are bad for the TEFL industry.

Incidentally, when Trusted TEFL Reviews tried to add a comment to the TPR Teaching website, our comment wasn’t published by Caitriona. We have received complaints from other people who have also not had their comments published on Caitriona “Maria” McTiernan’s website.

We would advise treading carefully and taking anything published on the TPR Teaching site with a generous dose of skepticism.

Caitriona and The TEFL Academy are welcome to add a comment to this article.

Mia Williams

trustedteflreviews.com

Related articles:

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

https://trustedteflreviews.com/2019/03/25/the-tefl-academy-certification-review/

May 2022 Caitriona Maria McTiernan Update

This is a quick Trusted TEFL Reviews update, highlighting the continued harassment that I (Mia Williams) have been receiving from TTA The TEFL Academy, and one of its employees: Caitriona Maria McTiernan.

Trusted TEFL Reviews received these two messages from Caitriona Maria two days ago:

At first, we refused to delete the comments.

But then, we decided to delete these two comments from this article because we get how some people can act and say really dumb things when they are stressed out.

When we received yet another message, also from Caitriona Maria McTiernan – a message that we can’t publish on here because of the intense use of expletives and graphic threats – we made the call to publish the screenshot that we had taken of Caitriona’s previous two comments submitted to trustedteflreviews.com on May 17th.

TTA The TEFL Academy and its Brand Ambassador Caitriona Maria McTiernan are very good at marketing. However, I’m not certain how they are going to market themselves out of this one.

Mia Williams | Trusted TEFL Reviews

The post TPR Teaching Caitriona Maria appeared first on Trusted TEFL Reviews.