ESLinsider | A Warning for all TEFL/TESOL students and graduates.
We don’t like to issue warnings but there are times when we feel that we have to.
These times are when Trusted TEFL Reviews feels that it is in the public interest to issue a warning.
This is such a time.
ESLinsider is all over the internet.
For those of you who don’t know, ESLinsider is a blog and a TEFL program operated by a guy from Monroe, New Hampshire.
His name is Ian Patrick Leahy.
This is the guy:
In this photo, taken from his ESLinsider blog, Ian Patrick Leahy gives the misguided advice that people shouldn’t bother taking a college degree course.
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Mia Williams – Trusted TEFL Reviews
Ian is famous in the TEFL world, for all the wrong reasons.
About ten years ago, Ian took a dirt-cheap TEFL course and decided that he could create a better course.
So, he put his skills to work and created a TEFL course which he coined his TEKA course.
To finance the marketing for this TEFL course, he became a prolific blogger, shill, and spammer.
As some TEFL programs have correctly pointed out, Ian and ESLinsider accounts were banned from Facebook because of this shilling and spamming.
If QAnon had a TEFL branch, Ian would be its director.
So many TEFL programs and TEFL accreditation bodies have publicly complained about Ian’s incessant bullying and his non-stop publishing of TEFL conspiracy theories.
Choose any TEFL program or TEFL accreditation body- Ian will have written some garbage online about it.
This was the ESLinsider head office when Ian lived in Japan:
For a while, Ian’s business took off.
He was somehow able to run his business while he lived in and then moved from China to South Korea, and then from Taiwan to Japan.
His big convincer was his blog.
‘ESLinsider’ gives the impression of someone in the know.
The truth is, that Ian has very limited knowledge of TEFL and this has been demonstrated in the teaching videos that he used to upload to his YouTube channel.
It was all about the money.
I don’t think Ian had or has any deep love or attachment to TEFL.
Here is another photo of Ian- also taken in Japan:
Ian went from TEFL program owner to TEFL online teacher.
What happened? Why the fall from grace?
Well, in part, Trusted TEFL Reviews can be thanked for this.
We noticed the growing number of complaints by ESLinsider students.
There were complaints about his customers being defrauded out of their money.
There were complaints about his customers being arrested in China because Ian by then was sought after by the Chinese authorities for fraud. Showing an ESLinsider TEFL certificate at an interview was classed as guilt by association.
There were also complaints about his customers being arrested in China because they took Ian’s advice to buy fake college diplomas.
I’m not making this up, but I do wish I were making it up.
Ian is a menace.
Let’s have another photo of Ian to break up the text in this article.
This one is of Ian teaching Phonics.
The only problem is that he doesn’t have the first clue about phonics:
Someone who does know what phonics is:
So why are we writing this article?
Trusted TEFL Reviews began exposing Ian Leahy two years ago.
And, he DID NOT like it.
He directed his attention away from the TEFL programs and TEFL accreditation bodies that he was destroying online and turned that energy on me and Trusted TEFL Reviews.
His bullying was unbelievable. It was non-stop.
Conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory.
He would write that I was the owner of this and that TEFL program.
A month later, I was the owner of yet another TEFL program.
My name wasn’t Mia.
I was a guy.
And on and on and on and on the garbage spewed from his “office”.
What did I do?
I published an article, exposing Ian.
The article became a mini viral “sensation” in the TEFL world and the result was that Ian went out of business.
He moved back to Monroe, New Hampshire, and began working on the ski slopes there.
Of course, that didn’t stop his harassment of me and most other TEFL programs and TEFL accreditation bodies.
It did, however, slow him down.
Ian is currently working a summer season in Oregon, at one of the lodges there.
On Reddit, he was last seen asking about illegal job opportunities in Chile and New Zealand.
Despite his ESLinsider program being dead in the water, Ian still takes the time to spread his conspiracy theories.
My advice to anyone who reads something that has been written by Ian Patrick Leahy from ESLinsider:
What you are reading has no substance in the real world.
It is just the rantings of a desperate man with a conspiratorial mind.
If you think you are reading something written by Ian Patrick Leahy, you probably are.
He always uses the same style.
Screenshots with line markers added- highlight some nonsense connection that he has made.
As long as Ian believes that he can somehow resurrect his TEFL program from the ashes, he will keep on and on and on and on writing about how bad his competitors are and how fraudulent all the accreditation bodies are.
That, in a nutshell, is Ian Patrick Leahy from ESLinsider.
You can Google search ‘ESLinsider’ and ‘Ian Patrick Leahy TEFL’ for confirmation of what I have written.
Thank you for reading this ESLinsider article.
Mia Williams – Trusted TEFL Reviews
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I was intrigued by this article and I looked up Ian Leahy ESLinsider online. He sure does push a lot of narratives that paint his competitors as crooks and himself as a pillar of truth. I can’t understand why anyone would take him seriously but I’m guessing some gullible people do.
Patricia.
Thanks for adding your comment.
Some people who believe ESLinsider/Ian Patrick Leahy might be gullible, but I think the majority of people who do fall for his stories just haven’t been in TEFL long enough to realize that what they are reading by Ian is completely fabricated and intended to further his own financial benefit.
The problem is that Ian isn’t upfront about ESLinsider being a TEFL program competitor.
He starts off by hooking people in with a story, written by a supposed “insider”, and then later down the road he tries to sell them one of his TEFL courses.
By the time the person finds out they have been duped into believing a load of horse crap, and by the time they have already paid money for one of his courses, it’s far too late and they find themselves victim of an intricate scam.
Thankfully, more people are wise to this now- thanks to myself and others who have made it their mission to make TEFL newbies aware of the hidden agenda behind his TEFL conspiracy theories and general TEFL spam.
Mia Williams – Trusted TEFL Reviews
I was online-scammed by ESL Insider.
At first, I thought Ian was some kind of TEFL warrior – helping people with his many years of teaching experience.
I now discover that he doesn’t even have a TEFL certificate himself, he was banned from Facebook for spreading conspiracy theories, he trashes all of his competitors in the TEFL space, and his TEFL certificate program isn’t recognized.
It’s all smoke and mirrors.
Ian Leahy (AKA ESLinsider) is a dangerous scam.
People have gone to prison because of his advice given about buying fake degrees online for teaching jobs in China.
I’m now left with a worthless certificate after taking an extremely poor TEFL course.
Scam!