Are Affordable TEFL Courses Legitimate?

Is TEFLmasters Legitimate?

Yes, TEFLmasters.com is legitimate. Affordable doesn’t mean easy, nor does it mean unregulated. Our courses are actually accredited by two private accreditors: OTCAC and CPD-verified. Later this year, we will also secure Level 5 course accreditation through OFQUAL (though Level 5 courses will be more expensive for students due to the additional associated costs). Once we have OFQUAL regulation, we will continue our OTCAC accreditation for our more affordable TEFL courses. We’re active, real-world language teachers – we’re educators first, and we believe in providing excellent training and service.

What Does It Mean To Offer Legitimate TEFL Courses?

There’s a common claim online that cheap TEFL courses don’t properly train trainee teachers in practical teaching skills.

It’s a frustrating stereotype, because many low cost TEFL courses are poor quality and therefore aren’t highly regarded by employers. However, ours is high quality – cost isn’t a measure of instructional quality.

Try Our Free Lesson - It's What All Our Knowledge-Packed Lessons Look Like

Our content is designed by trained, qualified teachers: it's also updated and improved over time. We actually care about training teachers who know how to act in certain situations - we use cognitive-practical tasks to help you actively process, analyze, and apply the knowledge you learn. This course doesn't allow passive learning - it isn't easy: it's active learning, which makes you a prepared English language teacher.

The quality of a TEFL program is determined by 1) the expertise and knowledge of its designers; 2) curriculum design and concept development ; 3) delivery and concept reinforcement; 4) assessment structure; 5) learning outcomes and completion standards; and 6) accreditation.

TEFLmasters TEFL courses objectively fulfil all of these measures of quality and exceed all other TEFL courses anywhere near our price-point.

Are we perfect? No. We would never claim to be. However, we do try to be (as impossible as this may be). We constantly adapt and improve our courses, and we answer emails as quickly as we can: we actually care about quality education and customer service.

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Internationally Dual-Accredited by OTCAC & CPD-verified

Reddit is great for some things but, as with all other things online, you need to be cautious about accepting everything you read there: “Cheap TEFL certificates are just box tickers” and “All of these cheap TEFL companies are just certificate mills,” are fairly commonly churned out misconceptions by Reddit users.

These commenters perhaps understand that many cheap courses are that way, wish to highlight the supremacy of CELTA courses (which are obviously the apex, but not feasible for most people due to cost, time, and geolocation), or have never taken a TEFLmasters course.

We refuse to be boxed into the nonsense that all affordable TEFL courses don’t train their students because they’re cheap: it’s based on stereotyped fallacy and faulty premises. Try our free lesson and compare it to any other course under $300 if you want evidence.

1. Expertise of the Course Designers

The course should be developed by educators with:

- Vast classroom teaching experience
- Knowledge of language acquisition theory
- Practical lesson planning and classroom management expertise

How can a course run and updated by non-teachers be credible?

TEFLmasters staff are all active language teachers with certification and training, as well as years of experience.

2. Curriculum Design

The curriculum should:

- Progress logically from theory to application
- Clearly explain how to plan, teach and manage lessons
- Show how to develop grammar, vocabulary, skills and learner competence

It must explain how teaching works – not just describe teaching concepts.

Our courses don’t just rely on the teaching of theory: that’s not giving trainees anything they couldn’t get from a textbook: we force you to apply the knowledge in scenarios.

3. Application Opportunities

Students should have structured opportunities to apply theory through:

Scenario-based analysis
Lesson planning tasks
Evaluation of teaching methods
Observation of real or staged teaching

Application is essential for preparation. Observing real lessons should be standard practice.

We utilize all of these training methods. We know for a fact that most 120-hour and 168-hour TEFL courses (even those costing hundreds of dollars) do not include these methods.

4. Assessment Structure

Assessment should measure more than recall, and test the following:

Knowledge
Application
Analysis
Evaluation of teaching decisions

Multi‑level assessment signals stronger academic design.

TEFLmasters courses include over 1500 assessment questions that range through the spectrum of knowledge to application to analysis to evaluation of teaching practice.

5. Learning Outcomes & Standards

A credible course defines:

What graduates will be able to do
What standards must be met
Clear completion criteria

Certification should require demonstrated competence. This should be assessed and quality-assured by a third-party (see accreditation).

Our courses don’t just rely on the teaching of theory: that’s not giving trainees anything they couldn’t get from a textbook: we force you to apply the knowledge in scenarios.

6. Accreditation Oversight

Government or private accreditation adds:

External curriculum review
Assessment oversight
Certification validation

When an accreditor operates solely with one or two TEFL company clients, it’s highly likely they’re not a true accreditor: apply logic and be wary.

We are dual-accredited (OTCAC and CPD-verified, and are set to gain OFQUAL regulation on a Level 5 TEFL course this year). Our accreditors have numerous clients and use objective standards

Our Most Affordable TEFL Certification Course

Tutor Support Included

Our affordable online TEFL course was created by actual TEFL instructors with teaching licenses and years upon years of experience. Technical & tutor support is available for all students. Our team of trained staff are here to ensure that your TEFLmasters experience is as smooth as possible.

Better Than Other Cheap TEFL Courses

We want to be the best cheap TEFL course provider in the world, not just delivering incredible value but providing the best service, too. Our self-paced and automated TEFL courses give you practical experience via short scenario-based learning tasks online: these are automated but put theory into practice.

Learn At Your Own Pace

Enjoy instant content unlocking. Study 23 units filled with online TEFL training content that will turn you into a knowledgeable and confident EFL teacher. Our content goes deeper and prepares you better than other TEFL courses under $200. How do we know? We’ve taken many of them, and had customers from refunded courses.