TEFLPros Review: A Real Teacher Weighs In

In this article, we’ll take a deep dive into the TEFL course offered by TEFLPros, a leading provider of TEFL certification to English teachers from the United States and abroad.

Before completing your chosen TEFL course, you will have made a significant investment of both time and money. Given such a commitment of resources, you want to select the right one that fits both your teaching style and career aspirations.

Here is everything that you need to know about TEFLPro’s Plus 120-hour online TEFL course to help you make the most informed decision possible.

TEFLPros Overview

An American entrepreneur, Whitney, founded TEFLPros in 2015 following impactful experiences working and living abroad that sparked an interest in making a full-time career switch. She decided to focus her efforts on helping others transition into meaningful employment teaching English abroad, just as she had.
Whitney combined her experience as both an English teacher and a TEFL trainer into a new TEFL teacher training enterprise dedicated to equipping English teachers with the tools they need to thrive in the classroom.
Now, several years later, the result is the TEFLPros Plus 120-hour TEFL course, which we’ll explore in detail throughout this article.

TEFLPros: Pros & Cons

What we like

• 100% online
• Twice weekly coaching sessions with teacher trainers via Zoom
• Includes professional portfolio for use in your TEFL job search
• 17 hours of classroom observation videos
• Step-by-step instruction on effective lesson planning
• Teacher-friendly platform developed and operated by a real TEFL instructor
• Lifetime job assistance
• A full module dedicated to online teaching
• Highly reviewed by former students

What we don’t like

• No automatic placement or job guarantee following graduation (though they do offer lifetime job assistance.)
• Expensive but competitively priced for trainer-led online programming

Features and Benefits of the TEFLPros Plus Course

Below you’ll find a comprehensive overview of the TEFLPros Plus 120-Hour Online TEFL Course, with critical information broken up by category.

Curriculum and Platform

The biggest benefit of the TEFL course is that it was designed from the perspective of the teacher, resulting in content full of practical and useful insights that can only be gained through experience.

TEFLPros offers the following materials with its TEFL course:

• 12 modules (broken up into 36 units) of core course material.
• Text documents in every unit that complement the material covered and provide additional context.
• Worksheets and assignments to drill home key concepts.
• Quizzes and assessments to determine your progress.
• The TEFLPros Activity Book.
• The TEFLPros Interview and Resume Guide.
• The TEFLPros Guide to Teaching English Online.
• Professional portfolio at the end of the course.
• A bank of downloadable teaching aids perfect for those looking to work digitally.

On the user-friendly TEFLPros platform, you will also have access to the following features:

• Twice weekly coaching sessions with your training staff via Zoom.
• 17 hours of in-classroom teaching videos where you observe the dynamics within a real TEFL classroom and corresponding strategies that the teacher can use to maximize the effectiveness of the instruction.
• Explanatory videos for each of the units.
• Step-by-step lesson planning instruction.
• Lifetime job assistance.

TEFLPros and its curriculum is fully accredited by ACCREDITAT, a reputable UK firm that is respected in the ESL industry globally. Furthermore, in fact, the CEO of ACCREDITAT, Tom Greenan, endorsed Whitney’s TEFLPros course personally.

The company is also a member of the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (IATEFL) and other industry groups.

Perhaps most impressively, TEFLPros has a nearly flawless rating from former students on Go Overseas, a large TEFL site with a network of 100,000+ ESL professionals from around the world.

To get a feel for the layout of the TEFLPros platform and the structure of the course, consider enrolling in a free 2-day trial run of the product (no credit card required), complete with an introduction to the course, multimedia content (including hours of training videos), sample lesson plans and worksheets!

Support, Resources, and Job Assistance

Although the instruction is offered entirely online, Whitney’s TEFL course has been described as “the closest thing to an in-person experience that you can get with an online course” because of the attention and support that come standard for every student.

TEFLPros’ pledge of lifetime job assistance could be a game changer if you want to emerge from the successful completion of your certification course fully prepared to take the competitive ESL job market by storm.

Discovering meaningful, rewarding ESL work is certainly possible on your own, but your chances of landing the job that you want increase significantly when you have the support of experienced staff behind you.

In the case of TEFLPros, the disadvantage of no in-class training is offset by the fact that the curriculum is built on the years of experience of its founder, and because the company offers twice weekly coaching sessions live on Zoom. This means that if you participate in volunteer teaching while studying with TEFLPros online, you can bring your questions and concerns to your instructor each and every week. Plus with 18 months of access, most graduates have months of live support available to them once they are teaching full-time overseas or online.

Nonetheless, if you have your heart set on getting into a classroom and practicing your English-teaching hands-on with the benefit of direct feedback from an instructor, you might want to consider another TEFL course.

Price

Course cost is obviously a major concern for most people and an important factor to consider when weighing your TEFL course options.

The TEFLPros Plus course is a high-quality TEFL option. For a trainer-led program that offers 18 months of coaching sessions, it is competitively priced at $1500-$1800 depending on their monthly promotions. Similar training options will hold you to a strict timetable of 4-12 weeks which does not accommodate the needs of many online learners.

The bottom line is that, while TEFLPros is not the cheapest option, it does offer a high cost-to-benefit ratio, and what you get in terms of the features outlined above.

If you’re in the market for high-quality online course options that will give relevant training and hands on support, TEFLPros should be high on your list.

What to Consider Before Enrolling in a TEFL Course

Here are the top considerations to make when considering a TEFL course. Keep these in mind as you compare TEFLPros with other courses:

Is the TEFL course backed by accreditation from a reputable service? 

Not all TEFL courses are recognized internationally. This means that if you enroll in the wrong course, it could end up being worthless when you actually start your job hunt. Accordingly, it’s always wise to look for accreditation and — equally importantly — which agency has stamped its seal of approval.

What features does the course offer? 

Is the class all online, in-person, or mixed? Is the course centered on classroom instruction or is there hands-on training and evaluation? Are the materials physical or digital, or mixed? What curriculum does the course use and who developed it?

What do former students say about the TEFL course? 

As a prospective student, you can learn a lot about a TEFL course by surveying reviews (preferably from a variety of sources) from former students.

What is the price of the TEFL course? 

How does it compare to the cost of similar courses?

Is TEFL certification necessary for your desired teaching position? 

Some countries/types of schools require TEFL certification as a standard prerequisite for employment and/or a visa. Other employers view TEFL certification as an advantage and might prefer that a job candidate have one. Finally, many countries/schools have no TEFL requirements whatsoever. 

Accordingly, you are well-advised to look into the TEFL requirements for the particular destination/school that you are interested in and factor that information into your decision-making process.

What Real TEFLPros Students Say About the Program: Is It Worth It?

As we mentioned earlier, any thorough assessment of an online TEFL course should include firsthand reports from students who have previously taken and completed the course.

The reviews from TEFLPros graduates are overwhelmingly positive. Here is a sampling from various sources around the web.

TEFLPros Alternatives

Still considering other courses?  Here are 3 alternatives that are a good option to some of TEFLPros’ downsides:  

The Bottom Line: Is the TEFLPros Plus 120-Hour TEFL Course Right for You?

Ideally, you now have a clearer idea of whether TEFLPros offers the type of ESL instruction that will help you develop professionally and put you in the best position possible to reach your career goals.

The essential takeaway is that you should consider the 120-hour TEFLPros Plus course if you like:

• Propriety, exclusive ESL curriculum developed by a professional, experienced teacher trainer.
• The all-online course format.
• Dozens of hours of experience-driven instructional videos.
• Twice weekly coaching calls with trainer.
• Unlimited job assistance for finding ESL employment around the globe.
• The complementary professional portfolio documenting your work and credentials to aid in the job search.
• A course that is well-reviewed when it comes to both curriculum and support.