TEFL course scams: how to tell if a provider is legitimate

Why it’s important to get TEFL certified with a legitimate course provider 

Let’s put this in simple terms.

If you wanted to become a doctor, you’d want to qualify through a university or medical school. Ideally, you wouldn’t get your MD from a questionable website that promises full training in less than 10 hours. Firstly, no hospital would hire you. Secondly, you wouldn’t be adequately trained. Third, your qualification wouldn’t be legitimate. We could go on and on.

Perhaps that’s a high falutin example but the principle remains. Qualifying for anything through illegitimate means is a surefire way to either be barred from opportunities or find out the hard way that you’re unprepared. So, when a TEFL course provider promises almost instant certification, but isn’t accredited or has any sort of reputation, avoid it.

It could also come at a significant financial cost. Sure, illegitimate course providers might offer discount courses - at first. What tends to happen is that extra fees pop up all over the place, and they’re far weightier than that initial sign-up fee. Did it turn out that the timescale for passing a TEFL course wasn’t enough? Extra fee. Needing some materials to practise teaching? Extra fee. The course certificate itself? Two words: extra fee.

How much should a TEFL course cost? 

The cost of TEFL courses is fiercely debated, with course providers remaining competitive in the marketplace.

If you’re looking for a frugal option, a Groupon course that promises the earth, it won’t take you very far. Not only that, but those types of courses have myriad hidden fees - even if you complete it, the certificate itself often comes at an exorbitant cost. If you’re looking for the best TEFL certification that employers seek out, a discount course won’t do the job.

Level 5 or 120-hour TEFL qualifications are well worth the money, but it’s a must to ensure that the course provider has excellent accreditation and a reputation for quality. A high-calibre Level 5 TEFL course should cost $288-635/£250-550, while 120-hour online courses normally fall between $207-427/£180-370. 

CELTA courses, meanwhile, are taught mostly in person, and for a long time, were the industry standard for TEFL teachers. Normally, these courses range at around $2,785/£1,365 and can be taught either part or full-time. DELTA (Diploma in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) courses, an advanced course for teachers with at least one year of experience, are pricier, normally costing over $3,000/£1,500.

Extra TEFL training, though, doesn’t cost the earth. Once you’ve achieved your industry-standard TEFL certification (120 hours plus), you can add to your qualifications with advanced TEFL courses, which cost under $200/£150. This can include teaching young learners, exam preparation, online teaching and other specific niches of the TEFL industry.

Does the course come with tutor support from experienced teachers?

An important factor to consider when you’re signing up for a TEFL course, or indeed, deciding which provider to go with, is this: do they boast about having tutor support from experienced TEFL teachers? 

Let’s face it - if a company is run by former or current TEFL teachers, or features former or current TEFL teachers, it should be showing that fact off. It should be at the forefront of their advertising. Why wouldn’t you want potential customers to know that their course would be in the hands of those who’ve been there, done it and got the t-shirt?

It’s a worry, then, if a provider can’t make that assurance. It’s not to say that someone who hasn’t taught TEFL themselves should teach others how to do it. However, if you had a choice between learning from someone who’d lived the experiences and someone who didn’t, who would you rather have teaching you?

There’s plenty of reason to be cynical if a TEFL course provider doesn’t have anything about the tutors themselves. Either it’s an oversight on their part, or they want to hide the fact that their tutors have zero industry experience. In both cases, that’s a bad sign.

Not to hammer the point too much, but if a course provider had experienced tutors with a great deal of TEFL experience, they’d tell you. If they don’t, it’s best to assume something suspicious is happening.

How is the course assessed?

Good question! The answer is: you should know this before entering a TEFL course. The good providers will tell you exactly how it’s done, when you’ll get your feedback from assignments and what they’re grading, no matter the exercise.

It shouldn’t be arbitrary, and it shouldn’t be secretive. Ideally, TEFL course providers want everyone to pass their courses, and for everyone to be assessed well. However, if a course provider doesn’t tell you about the number of people passing their courses. alarm bells ought to ring.

Given the time sensitivity of a TEFL course (after all, they’re all advertised for a certain number of hours of coaching), markers ought to get back to you quickly. The best course providers offer a quick turnaround for marking, usually 48 hours, so you can get on with actually doing the course. If a course provider doesn’t make these kinds of assurances or even tells you what to expect in a vague way, that’s a bad sign.

Generally, TEFL courses are assessed in different ways. A certain percentage will be on written tasks and exercises and so on. There should be transparency about how this is done, either before you take the course, or while you’re doing that.

If none of that is happening, you’re probably best seeing what other options are out there. The danger is that the course provider is a scam artist, skimming over your work and giving out arbitrary high scores, or they’re not marking it at all and just telling you what you want to hear.

That doesn’t exactly make for a high-quality teaching experience.