Terrible Experience

I want to preface this by saying that I’ve never written a negative review, but I really felt that this was an exceptional circumstance. We attempted to provide direct feedback to management but were met with insults and direct communication that we may receive poor references. The course covered the necessary materials to teach English, however my concerns are as follows:

1) All online and course materials state the TEFL program is 4 weeks long. We were told in the fourth (and what should have been final) week that we would not receive our certification until we finished the Spanish classes. They scheduled me to teach during the week of Spanish classes and I received no financial compensation for the additional ten hours that I taught.

2) The school promises presentations and interviews with local employers during the professional development day - this did not happen. There is no job placement and you’re left to navigate the job search and interviews on your own. We were emailed a list of contact information for local employers, only after we asked to be provided with it.

3) We were never supervised or observed by Buenos Aires TEFL staff during our teaching practicum. When someone asked why we hadn’t been observed or received feedback, we were told “I never observe new teachers”.

4) An instructor spent approximately 1.5 hours of every TEFL class teaching intermediate level Spanish instead of the TEFL curriculum. This adds up to a significant amount of time and content over 4 weeks. They then told us later that we don't know enough to teach English online.

When we brought these questions forward, we were told we're entitled, unprofessional, and that they remember people who “complain” when employers call for references. After the program ended we were emailed an altered copy of the terms and conditions that had several additions, most notably “if you defame the school in whatever platform you use, the school has the right to sue you”. They claimed in the email that we agreed to these terms before starting the course. I can very confidently say that no, those were not the terms we agreed to. For the reasons I've outlined above, I do not recommend this program.

PS If you decide to do this program, don't stay at the school. The rooms are damp, musty, cold (there's no heating), and our bedroom had mosquitoes. I had a cough the entire 5 weeks I was there, which cleared up as soon as I moved out.