Wednesday 27 January 2016

Camp Thailand

We have received quite a few reviews and comments on Camp Thailand, which seems to be based in Surin, but also with camps in Phuket and Chiang Mai. It also has the backing of Americamp, which is certainly superficially a plus. However, it's unclear whether Camp Thailand is a franchise or a company in its own right. The man running it is Philip Crabb  (click here). Interestingly, Philip Crabb is the same man as Philip Dunne, who used to run Island TEFL, and the Camp Thailand courses are basically the same as the Island TEFL ones. As one would expect, the  website is very impressive, with lots of bells and whistles - and, of course, testimonials. But always beware of testimonials. No company is going to give any kind of negative report about itself. It's also very easy for companies to massage testimonials on their own and other sites (e.g. GoAbroad) by giving students an incentive to post a review. That could be in the form of a discount or a pass or a special position. To get an idea of the kind of standards to expect from Camp Thailand and some of its early history, simply google "Island TEFL Review" and a good mix of reports will come up.

Do check out the other posts on this blog too. Just click on the blog title in big letters right at the top to get to the latest post. Read particularly the posts about accreditation and pricing. Finally, and importantly, read the comments below.

Good luck with your search for a good summer camp.

Greg

3 comments:

  1. Hi,
    Thanks for sharing knowledgeable post. This is very helpful for us.
    TEFL Certification Thailand
    120 hour tefl course

    ReplyDelete
  2. Strangely, some comments that were up before have been deleted. I've certainly had no communication from Google about it. It was originally posted in September 2016 by "anonymous". I would guess it was someone who worked for Camp Thailand previously but wished to remain anonymous. Anyway, here it is again in it's entirety:

    The Americamp side of the business looks legitimate, but Philip Crabb/Dunne is a total scammer. The TEFL is not internationally recognized as they claim (unless random people can internationally accredit educational courses). He doesn't even read students submissions (someone passed by sending in a blank document!). With each new group, he picks on someone and kicks them off the course and out of camp, this is to scare the remaining people into keeping quiet. The teaching is done by himself (a teacher sacked in Bangkok) or anyone he can get, generally someone with no teaching qualifications who just wants to stay around Thailand.

    It is sad that the people are going to the Camp Thailand/Americamp Company and are ending up with a scammer in Thailand. They people believe that the qualification is real - I am sorry to say that it isn't – it’s just a way for Philip (whatever he calls himself this week) to rip people off and stay living it up in Thailand.

    On the camp before mine, one of the Thai workers at the camp (he is still employed - he was told to do this by Phil's wife) threatened some of the girls with a gun because they were not going in Phil's expensive taxi. The girls were really scared and told me because I was coming on the next camp, unfortunately, I couldn't back out by the time I heard this. Strangely, Americamp were aware of this and did - NOTHING.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I must say, that's certainly disturbing that a student can submit a blank document and that Philip Crabb rules by fear. Has anyone else witnessed him kicking someone off a course? The gun incident also sounds scary. Anyone who witnessed it should come forward.

    ReplyDelete