International Open Academy

“Cheap TEFL course without international recognition”

The 5 Best Online TEFL & TESOL certification courses in 2023 & 2024 - trustedteflreviews.com
1 star online tefl review

Cheap TEFL Course International Open Academy review, written by Samantha.

This online TEFL course was on promotion on Groupon, and the heavy discount was seriously enticing. Only $19 for a distance learning TEFL course! What did I have to lose? I grabbed the deal!

It was when I opened the first module that I knew that there was a reason why the course was only $19.

Each of the modules contain about a page of text, followed by quiz questions that were an insult to my intelligence. They were just ridiculous.

Still, I soldiered on and completed the course in 2 days. If you do decide to pay the $19 for this course, just skim the reading and take the quizzes. There really isn’t much value anyway in the texts.

I then printed out the certificate, which looked like a template you would find if you Googled a TEFL certificate template. It just didn’t look believable at all.

I again soldiered on and started the process of job hunting.

I began a conversation with a school based in Chengdu, China, which was looking for a native speaker from the US or Canada, to teach in an international school – teaching kindergarten kids and teenagers.

The pay was very good and there were other perks, such as free airfare, subsidized accommodation, an end-of-year bonus, and so on.

A college degree and international TEFL certificate, as well as a clean criminal background, were the main requirements for the job. Tick, tick, tick! I forwarded copies of the documents to the school.

And, my application was rejected. All on the basis that my International Open Academy TEFL certificate wasn’t accepted. I asked why. The school replied that it’s not on the official list of recognized TEFL programs.

So, I asked for the list. The school obliged and I couldn’t see International Open Academy (IOA) anywhere on that list.

What could I do? I had to write off the $19 I’d spent on the cheap TEFL course with IOA and chose a different school, from the official list.

I chose https://trustedteflreviews.com/category/tefl-online-pro-teachers-choice-award-winner-2022/ because they have won awards and have very good student reviews.

I took the course with Tefl Online Pro, it was obviously a much more in-depth course, and it took me 2 weeks to complete. I worked on it 6 days a week.

I then went through the process of resubmitting my documents to the school.

And, I got accepted! 🙂

The one big take from this whole experience is not to be fooled by a really cheap TEFL course.


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