Review of Tefl Express: The Cheap Online Tefl Course from Groupon

TEFL Express: A fair appraisal

About a year ago, as I was preparing to vacate the UK to teach English in China I suddenly had the urge to get a TEFL qualification. In a mad rush I bought myself a £100 TEFL Express 120hr advanced course from Groupon without really doing my research, only stopping to check whether the course was accredited.

In the mad rush to get going, my TEFL course was lost and forgotten about. My employers didn't care though, so neither did I. After about 8 months of teaching English as a foreign language at the NDI (New Dynamic Institute) in Zhengzhou, I decided it was about time to get a professional qualification in what seemed to be becoming my main income source having only earned £206.74 from travel writing.

(feel free to click on the adverts on my site)

TEFL Express, the cheap online TEFL course.

So I found my old Groupon Voucher which was packed away in some unopened suitcase and activated my account with TEFL express. With this course you only get 75 days to complete it, "not a problem", I thought to myself as a whizzed through the first module. "At this rate I'll be finished in a few months", narrated my smug inner monologue. But then I started to wonder, "why is it so easy, a 5 year old could complete this course!". You have to doubt an online professional qualification which is ludicrously easy with a 55% pass rate. I'm currently on 95.6%, losing marks only due to a page with a very unclear exam layout.

However, more worrying than this is the site's constant unreliability. I work everyday from 2pm to 8pm, meaning my free time is in the mornings. Every morning (Chinese Time), the TEFL Express website is down meaning, I can only access the course at night, after a long tiring day at work.

Erqi Square, Zhengzhou. A stones throw away from my Flat. In Zhengzhou, like many Cities in China, you don’t need and ESL or TEFL qualification to teach at schools or Private Training Companies like The New Dynamic Institute (NDI), the place I work!

As the course continues, ones scepticism, generated by the simplicity of the course begins to diminish. The units get steadily harder and more useful. Having already taught a lot of classes, it wasn't practical experience I needed, but classroom theory.

Gradually I began to incorporate a lot of what I learned from TEFL express in my own teaching at NDI. The 120hr course is full of useful tips and information and has helped me to become a competent (I hope) "teacher" (I'm not a teacher*).

The TEFL Express 120hr course may not be highly respected, but if you want to teach in China, or have teaching experience and want to learn theory, I would highly recommend it.

Unfortunately I unsure whither the super cheap discount is available via groupon any more. If you want to buy it with the 80% discount that I bought it with (Paying full price is not advisable) you can use the following discount voucher code.

Link to Tefl Express 120 hour special discount page

In order to use the discount page, you need the following promo code: Buddy590545013

If you want to teach English in China, having a certificate will make it so much easier for you to get a job and a foreign expert badge, even if it's one you print yourself!

Here in China, there are a lot of people who paid £600+ for TEFL courses, these people are now the colleagues of people who studied with cheap, online TEFL express. Most of these people, my colleagues, now wish they had save their money.

Heed my warning.

This Review is a few years old now: click on this link to check out my latest review of the TEFL Express 150 hour essentials course.