Are you searching for reviews of ESLinsider’s TEFL courses? Wondering why there aren’t any on 3rd party sites? O.k. that’s fair enough. Someone asked me this recently, so I thought I would share a bit why at the moment there aren’t.

If you are searching for reviews on ESLinsider then I’ll assume that you are also checking out other companies too and you have probably been to some review sites like:

• gobroad.com
• teflcoursereview.com
• gooverseas.com

Those are affiliate sites. They make money by referring people to other courses. You have to create an account there before people can leave reviews on your course.

I did initially create an account with either the goabroad or the gooverseas site (can’t remember which one) a few years ago, but changed my mind and had it deleted for a few different reasons.

No, it wasn’t because of a bad review. But one reason was if I wanted a better position on their site and to be found there then I had to pay money.

Plus I was thinking, would it be better if I had reviews on another site or my own site?

So I decided to put the reviews on my own site instead.

There are lots of affiliates in TEFL…

And chances are that you have come across them unknowingly. What that means is that a lot of the reviews that you may have read were written by someone who makes money by referring people to courses.

Once you click on their referral link which could be on sites like above or on blogs or a place like Quora you will be taken to another site and if you make a purchase on that site then the affiliate will make some money.

That’s fine if that’s what you want to do, but most people aren’t going to write a totally honest review if they are getting paid to do it and in many cases these people recommending these courses haven’t even taken the course.

Are paid reviews genuine?

Do a search in Google for these keywords:

• tefl affiliates

And you will find a lot of companies – pages and pages of TEFL course companies that do this.

If you want to learn more about this then I recommend that you check out this article on TEFL affiliates.

Anyways…

ESLinsider doesn’t have an affiliate program. Maybe I could make more money doing that, but I just don’t like it.

I have read that many of the reviews written online are fake and I wouldn’t be surprised if there are plenty of fake reviews in the TEFL course world.

• Yelp estimates 25% of it’s reviews are fake. Source
• Some companies may offer discounts to customers who write fake reviews. Source
• Some companies hire PR firms to write fake reviews. Source
• Companies may manipulate their customers to write reviews. (see below)

I read a story on Reddit a few years ago (which I can’t seem to find now) about a girl who had to write a review of the TEFL company before they gave her a certificate.

So as you can see some TEFL reviews may be fake or manipulated in some way.

ESLinsider is small, but genuine and maybe more personal

It’s not a large company or anything like that. It’s been up and online steady since 2011. It offers online training and resources for teachers especially focused on teaching kids in Asia. Many people who have reviewed it have commented that it is personable.

All the reviews that are written on my site are written by people who have taken courses there. I also kept some testimonials (2012-2016) which started long before I set up the reviews on my site in 2016.

As of right now there are 18 or 19 reviews on ESLinsider. I ask people if they can leave a review when they finish the course, however they aren’t obligated to. I think if you read the reviews you will see that most of them are genuine as they are specific.

I don’t edit these reviews except for a few typos or if I changed the course name that they mentioned. There I do say that I may delete a review if they don’t use their name and email used in the course. But I only say that to prevent possible trolls or jealous competitors from writing a malicious review with the intent to damage ESLinsider’s reputation.

If you are interested I could possibly ask to offer you further contact with one of these reviewers. I’d imagine they would say that’s o.k.

Do you trust 3rd party reviews more?

Because who knows maybe the reviews on my site are fake. Right?

I have only had that reviews component on my site for maybe a year and a half or so. And I am learning that people may find 3rd party reviews more trustful, so as of recently I have mentioned that teachers could also leave a review on Youtube.

Again I could incentivize teachers by having an affiliate marketing program, but I just don’t do that.

Read reviews of ESLinsider’s online TEFL courses or ask me a question.