Is Ninja Teacher Academy Legit?
Is Ninja Teacher Academy Legit Ninja Teacher Academy review, submitted by Claire.
First of all, I just want to make it clear that my original plans were to travel to Vietnam to take this 120-hour course in person at the Ninja Teacher Academy school. I read many great positive reviews of the program there and I really liked the energy of its founder, who is not shy of promoting his courses on video-sharing platforms like YouTube. I could see his energy was contagious because the videos where he is teaching the TEFL student also have that energetic enthusiasm about them. I’d read about all the TEFL program scams in Asia, such as the MyTEFL one, and I didn’t want to fall foul like some of their graduates have. One of the selling points of the Ninja program was how online TEFL courses are not worth it, so you should only take a TEFL course in person. He was really persistent with this philosophical point.
Then, of course, COVID-19 hit and it soon because clear that any trip over to Vietnam would be out of the question for a long while. When I contacted the program to ask for a refund, I was told that it wasn’t possible because I’d already paid upfront. However, and this surprised me no s**t Sherlock, they would be able to offer me an online study course as a sort of compensation, and my teaching hours I could simply teach to online students.
At first, I was a bit pissed because I’d already invested a lot into my Vietnam plans and I thought I was going to be protected regarding my consumer rights. But I also understood that s**t happens, so I agreed to his proposal. I mean, it could have been worse. I’ve heard of some people flat-out losing all their money because their TEFL school couldn’t work out how to transition to the online format and they lost their course fee.
I won’t lie. The online course looked rushed. It looked like it had been quickly put together. And, it probably had been. But I understood, again this pandemic was out of their hands, so I persisted and then taught the online hours and now I’m TEFL qualified.
One thing that did make me a bit pissed was reading that online TEFL certificates ARE accepted by employers worldwide. The reason this made me pissed was that Ninja TEFL lied to me when they said I had to take a TEFL course in person. This just isn’t true.
If you want the Online TEFL certificate then I probably wouldn’t recommend Ninja TEFL. If, however, you are in Vietnam when Ninja begins running their in-class course again then I think they are a program that you should seriously look into taking your TEFL course within Vietnam.
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Claire.
Thanks for writing your customer review of the Ninja Teacher Academy.
I do have some background information about this TEFL course provider.
Before the pandemic, the owner spent much of his online energy creating YouTube videos where he promoted his on-site (Ninja TEFL Training) TEFL course, and where he chastised anyone for wanting to take an online TEFL course.
Reason: he was running an on-site TEFL program and online TEFL programs were negatively affecting his business.
When the pandemic hit, the owner of Ninja Teacher Academy did a 180 and quickly began talking up the Ninja TEFL Academy online course that he very likely had quickly put together when he realized that his on-site TEFL program wouldn’t be bringing in any new customers, what with all the international travel restrictions, lock-downs, etc.
This pattern of behavior could be witnessed at the time in almost every on-site TEFL program that had in the past aggressively vilified online TEFL training courses.
Their argument was that employers only accepted on-site training certificates and looked down on online TEFL training certificates.
This wasn’t true back then and it isn’t true now.
Other than this information, I don’t have any current information about this program.
It hasn’t received many customer reviews, and it hasn’t tried to submit fake customer reviews, so I am pretty neutral currently about Ninja Teacher Academy.
Mia Williams – Trusted TEFL Reviews
Hi Claire,
We’re always looking out for ways to improve upon our courses and programs and take feedback from our customers seriously.
We’re sorry to hear you felt like the online course was rushed. We had filmed the training sessions from our in-class course so we already had the foundations prepared for an online course and it wasn’t a rushed switch on our side, but perhaps it wasn’t as polished as it is now when first released. Since then we’ve also improved the course a lot and continue to do so based on feedback. We aim to make it the best online learning experience we possibly can (and provide lifetime access to the new content so you can always come back to it).
Regarding the credibility of online TEFL certificates, we don’t make definitive statements that online TEFLs are not accepted at all by employers. However, it’s absolutely true we strongly recommend in-classroom training and tell potential customers that employers prefer such courses because, based on our experience and close connections with employers, this is what we hear from them time and time again.
A high quality online TEFL course can certainly provide a good foundation to be a TEFL teacher. Our issue with many courses over the years was the low quality of courses and how under prepared teachers would be from these. A lot of my push back against online courses was due to text-only online courses on the market. Our online course provides video recorded training from the classroom, live online training sessions and feedback on lesson plans. We believe our online TEFL course, while not in our initial plan, now makes a solid addition to our line up of courses.
We have now relaunched our 4 week in-class TEFL courses in Vietnam (and a 2 week course especially designed for people who have taken an online course and would like to get a practical teaching add-on) so we do maintain our views about the importance of in-person training.
We hope this provides some context for those reading this review.
Alex Stevenson
Founder & Director
Ninja Teacher TEFL Academy
Have heard and have read very good reports about Ninja Teacher’s on-site TEFL program in Ho Chi Minh City.
It is an accredited program, not fully accredited.
Despite this, I would recommend the program if you are looking for an on-site TEFL program to take when in Vietnam.
The certificate should be good for most teaching jobs in Vietnam.
Ninja Teacher is a parasite. He charges an outrageous fee for his program when you can get a TEFL for as little as $20 online. All schools care about it the TEFL. They do NOT care if it was online or in person. This is a fact which Alex continues to lie about.
JHT.
Thanks for your comment.
It’s true that you can get a TEFL for as little as US$20 online, but those dirt-cheap courses are best avoided. More info: https://trustedteflreviews.com/2019/09/20/online-tefl-tesol-certification-courses-for-under-50/
Ninja Teacher can charge whatever it wants for its TEFL courses.
It is true that schools really don’t care if you took the TEFL online or on-site.
Before the pandemic, Ninja Teacher claimed that online TEFL courses were worthless.
I guess this is because they were offering an on-site TEFL course and online TEFL courses were eating into their profits.
When the pandemic arrived, Ninja Teacher did a 180 and began offering its TEFL courses online only. It began promoting its online TEFL courses as an excellent and convenient method of getting into TEFL teaching.
It is, therefore, of little surprise to me if Ninja Teacher is claiming again that on-site TEFL courses are far superior to online TEFL courses. It’s just them trying to market and operate an on-site TEFL course in an industry where online TEFL courses are the go-to choice for many.
Mia Williams | Trusted TEFL Reviews
dear anon,
as an experienced TESOL educator with a CELTA, postgrad cert and a masters degree, I can tell you that initially you are only as good as the course you take. I have taken online TEFL courses and did an in person CELTA and there is no comparison. Do not look get hung up on the cost when choosing a course as you will make it back in spades, provided you are a decent teacher.
Having said that, I would suggest prospective teachers do an industry recognised course and not something like ninja teacher academy which has zero credibility or utility beyond second rate language schools in Vietnam. Vietnam may offer a decent standard of living and wage and is a good place to pad out a resume but the big money is in China, South Korea, and to some degree Japan and Taiwan.
sk.
Thanks for your comment.
Perhaps you took a dirt-cheap online TEFL course then because there are some excellent online TEFL and TESOL courses available that are equal to – some surpassing – the CELTA.
There can be no doubt that the CELTA is a first-class program, but it is not the holy grail of TEFL certification.
I took an online TEFL course and have been teaching in Vienna for years- alongside teachers that have a CELTA qualification.
Regarding the Ninja Teacher Academy, I have no comment.
We leave it up to its students and graduates to review the course.
Mia Williams – Trusted TEFL Reviews