TEFLmasters

I actually finished the program at the end of last year, but they recently contacted me on a follow-up for a review, which I'm happy to do now. The program was detailed and went into a lot of different areas that have proved helpful to me now that I'm actually teaching. People are right when they say you don't really learn until you teach, but this gave me a good amount of confidence to get out and teach. Looking back, the course helped me most with its focus on planning and on being able to handle when things don't go as planned, ironically! The scenarios they put out for practicing were actually pretty realistic, though it's obviously a lot faster and real in the classroom. I used my certificate from the TEFL Masters to get my visa for China, so it's legit. From others I've spoken with here, it's only worthwhile to pay much more for a TEFL if you actually get some form of teaching experience with it: I was happy with what I learned from TTM and was really happy with what I paid for that learning.

I was dubious about the price, but TEFLMasters is legit and it seems like they actually care about making students learn rather than just passing quickly, which is mostly refreshing because I did one of these years ago with global TESOL or something and I was able to just click through - and actually wanted to just click through - to get it done quickly. It wouldn't be possible to finish this in a day as they're pretty thorough with the learning procedure and ask a lot of CCQs and applied theory. It's hard not to be a bit dazzled by what you get for the price, but you soon get over it when you realise that means you need to work hard to get through it. That said, if you're a newb, that's a good thing - for someone with more experience you do learn new tips, but it'd be nice to have an abbreviated version of the text (as some questions ask specifically about it rather than all being generic stuff). The videos aren't AI, by the way - or at least the voice isn't AI, as the lad narrating occasionally makes a self-correction, etc. That's a huge bonus for a course but I'm not sure it's an essential. Just my PoV. Brilliant course and staff that get back to you quickly: those are my final two nuggets.

The TEFL Masters course is everything it promised to be: it's well-organised and it's clearly written by professionals, because there is just so much pedagogical knowledge. They have so many useful activities to make you really think about what you've read and listened to, and it gets your mind into how you might actually need to use the information. For me, this is where the course really matched its claims. I was expecting to just watch a few videos and read a pile of text, but they balance those things with using engaging assessments well. There are quite a few quiz questions on top of the situational tasks, so you have to either know the content well or have another page open with the course notes! I can't remember how many demo videos there are, but there are quite a few, and they're very good for seeing the concepts visually being done by people who make it look pretty easy (maybe too easy that it lures you into a false sense of security?!). While the course is excellent, I'd like to see a few improvements. First up, there needs to be a clearer overview of what each course gives you - there are quite a few course options, some with assignments, some with a practical (?), and it was a bit dense trying to find what I needed to know to make my decision. Customer service was very good, but having a chatbot or just a broader collection of questions in their faq would be much more convenient. Another thing is once you finish, they do have links for jobs and some resources, but these should be openly available or even provided at the end when you get your certificate. Really, for the $50 that you pay, these things are a bit like complaining about a dirty spoon when you're only eating a main course, but we all have expectations, and there were another few small things they can definitely improve on.