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.

Accreditation Watchdog: The TEFL Academy vs. TEFL Online Pro, submitted by The Trusted TEFL Reviews TEFL Watchdog.

Yesterday afternoon, The TEFL Watchdog decided to contact, via telephone, both The TEFL Academy and TEFL Online Pro, to see how their (virtual) face-to-face customer service support measures up against the scrutiny of some basic questioning.

We took the role of prospective students, interested in what each course has to offer.

We chose these two particular TEFL/TESOL course providers because one is the highest-rated program on Trusted TEFL Reviews, and the other is notorious for misleading its customers with regard to false accreditation claims and is notorious for launching clandestine attacks on its TEFL TESOL business competitors.

The former: teflonlinepro.com

The latter: theteflacademy.com

1. TEFL Online Pro.
In under a minute, The TEFL Watchdog was connected with a TEFL Online Pro office staff member – willing and able to answer any questions that we had. At the end of our conversation, they asked us if we had any further questions for them. The entire conversation was polite, knowledgeable, and professional.

2. The TEFL Academy.
After waiting for more than 5 minutes, we were finally connected to a TEFL Academy staff member that seemed like it was their first day on the job. When they were unable to answer any of our questions – the exact same questions that we put to TEFL Online Pro – they then redirected our phone call to a second TEFL Academy staff member, that also came across as clueless. Both staff members apologized for not being able to sufficiently answer our basic questions – basic questions that any prospective TEFL student would consider rudimentary.

One of our questions asked was, “Are your courses accredited?”

TEFL Online Pro answered in the affirmative.

The TEFL Academy also answered in the affirmative but provided us with false information.

The TEFL Academy stated that its courses are accredited by Ofqual and TQUK. They also mentioned a few other organizations which apparently accredit them. When The TEFL Watchdog noted that the organizations quoted are only regulatory bodies and not accreditation bodies, the second TEFL Academy staff member put the phone down on us!

Conclusion:

1. In the event that something goes wrong with your TEFL/TESOL course, or if you just need some support, our money would be on TEFL Online Pro to fix the issue and/or find a solution. If you are wanting to take a fully accredited and internationally recognized TEFL/TESOL certification course program, TEFL Online Pro provides this service.

2. In the event that something goes wrong with your TEFL/TESOL course, or if you just need some support, our money would not be on The TEFL Academy to fix the issue and/or find a solution. If you are wanting to take a fully accredited and internationally recognized TEFL/TESOL certification course program, The TEFL Academy does not provide this service. If you ever needed to contact The TEFL Academy directly, via telephone, our first-hand impression is that you will likely be lied to and likely locked in a never-ending telephone loop – passed from one uninformed staff member to another.

Final assessment:

TEFL Online Pro: 9/10

The TEFL Academy: 3/10

TEFL Online Pro is a Fully Accredited and internationally recognized TEFL TESOL course provider – accredited by ACTEFLC – Accreditation Council for Teaching English as a Foreign Language Courses: https://www.acteflc.com/

TEFL Online Pro clearly and transparently note this on their school website:
https://teflonlinepro.com/accreditation/

The TEFL Academy claim that they are accredited by a bunch of regulatory bodies, but we couldn’t find any examples of actual accreditation.

Final thoughts?

TEFL Online Pro came over as approachable and professional.

The TEFL Academy came over as evasive and disorganized.

TEFL Online Pro answered all our questions in a polite and detailed manner.

The TEFL Academy dodged questions and ultimately put the phone down on us.

Perhaps this explains why TEFL Online Pro is the highest-rated TEFL TESOL certification course program, and why The TEFL Academy is the 55th lowest-rated TEFL TESOL certification course program:

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

More TEFL TESOL program comparisons will appear sporadically throughout the remainder of 2025.

Read more about TEFL TESOL accreditation in the TEFL Accreditation Guide, and in TEFL TESOL Accreditation 101:

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

https://trustedteflreviews.com/2021/03/28/tefl-tesol-accreditation-101/

Accreditation Watchdog UPDATE: 18th May 2021.

Trusted TEFL Reviews (again) tried reaching The TEFL Academy, to ask basic questions which TEFL Academy students would likely need to ask, should things go south with their TEFL Academy course.

Again, after waiting on hold for approx. five minutes, we were put through to a company sales rep, that failed to answer any of our questions.

When we persisted in our questioning, we were duly informed that The TEFL Academy would no longer be answering our questions.

All we asked, was which accreditation body accredits the TEFL Academy courses.

When we did eventually get through to somebody who was willing to answer our question, the young gentleman on The TEFL Academy switchboard relayed to us that The TEFL Academy is accredited by Ofqual.

When we confirmed for this particular gentleman that OfQual is a regulatory body and not an accreditation body, he decided to put the phone down on us.

It was a straightforward question, responded with a less than straightforward response.

Extremely shady behavior.

Try it for yourselves: contact The TEFL Academy’s main customer line (+353 1554 62 27) and see how you feel about their customer service experience. Oh, and please ask them about their accreditation. They begin by claiming such and such accreditation, but the moment you question the legitimacy of those accreditation claims, they hang up on you and block your telephone number.

If you are wanting a personal TEFL TESOL course experience, and one that is fully accredited, Trusted TEFL Reviews recommends avoiding The TEFL Academy.

We also (again) contacted TEFL Online Pro – teflonlinepro.com – and they came over as transparent and ready to answer all of our asked accreditation questions.

Why is this so?

theteflacademy.com is regionally accredited (within Ireland and the UK) but is not fully accredited; nor internationally recognized.

teflonlinepro.com is Fully Accredited and internationally recognized.

Accreditation Watchdog, in association with The TEFL Watchdog

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

Essential TEFL Tip!

Are you worried about being scammed? TEFL course scams are becoming more sophisticated.

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

Read more The TEFL Academy reviews

Read more tefl online pro 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 Accreditation Watchdog: The TEFL Academy vs. TEFL Online Pro. appeared first on Trusted TEFL Reviews.

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

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

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

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 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.