TEFLmasters

I payed thinking I was going to get a bit of text, some questions, a few videos, and maybe some more questions in a game version or something. I was happily totally wrong. The course is legit good (120) and isn't at all like I had presumed it'd be. It's great value because of how much detail amd coverage it has. I had no idea what goes into teaching different ages aside from assuming they learn harder grammar the older they get. Turns out it's pretty complicated. The quizzes and games I thought were going to be basic are actually good. There are a lot of questions on different skills, so you can't really help but learn (they give feedback for practice quizzes to help with this). I think this was excellent. No need for tutor support.

The 120-hour course was really well put together, plain enough to understand, but deep enough to learn lots despite having a background in English.

High quality content - the structure makes sense and moved from more basic parts of teaching to more difficult ones that deserve more time and attention. There resources are excellent!
Engagement - the text on their LMS is interactive, which means learners like me (who get bored easily) have something to click at and touch. That's the big draw of their scenario learning and practice tests - they allow you to click many times and interact with them. It works well to combat boredom that some online learning can be guilty of.
Support - excellente. I had 2 questions and wanted their printable certificate, and they answered me within a few minutes the first time and within an hour the second.
Platform - I was linked to their new offsite LMS, which was fast and modern. It was really nice to work on. Everything worked. Videos played quickly - it was nice having narration for one pass of the text, and just reading for the second. I went through it how they advised, and I feel like I learned it really well.
Value - it's incredible value.
Overall - Wonderful and easy to recommend. I feel confident with what I learned.

The good - easy to learn when you want because it's online and you go slow or hard at whatever time or day. Lots and lots of information on everything that I researched good courses have - even online teaching, which is important to me. The admin team responded quickly when I had a job question. The videos are a good thing to play on fast speed to review - they have a man speaking the text, which isn't entertainment as itself but is useful for hearing the words. The scenarios learning is nicely put together and makes you think about the things you learned. It's a really good-structured course that's easy to learn from. The bad - no live jobs board showing which online companies are currently hiring. They have links, but then you need to go check these out rather than knowing where the jobs are at. Improvement would be a good thing here.

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.

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.