My advice is to avoid Island TEFL at all costs. The TEFL certification course falls well short of the 120 hours advertised and has almost no real Thai students to practice on. You will be disappointed. The standard of teaching is poor too. The placement programs are also complete rip-offs. You pay about $500 or even more for just a few days of cultural orientation. Meanwhile, there are loads of placement agencies who give orientation courses for free, because they get payment direct from the school that hires you. Philip Dunne is the guy who runs the courses, and he specialises in insulting and threatening people who give him any kind of problem. Philip Dunne also runs Camp Thailand using the name Philip Roy Crabb. Philip Crabb and Philip Dunne are the same person, and the TEFL courses offered by Camp Thailand are the Island TEFL ones. Court is still out on the actual camp experience for Thai students, but definitely avoid the TEFL courses and placement programs.
Island TEFL Thailand
This company is shady.
Red flag 1 - website had false information about the work visa
Red flag 2 - the owner said I could break the contract (leave the school early) and it wouldn't be a problem. What kind of a business suggests that?
Shady all around.
I signed up for Philip's Program R in Bangkok for October 2014 around April or May the same year, when I was planning to quit my job and see my long distance girlfriend for our year anniversary together. The program consisted of an online, 8 lesson course for $499 and the on-site course for $795. After initial contact through email, he invoiced me only for the October course of $795. When I asked if, that if in the case of not being able to show up in October, could I just do the online course first, to which he ignored me, and I caved and payed him the $795. After which I started taking the online lessons, which were more than textbook like and not at all worth $499. They featured one long-as-hell articles followed by 3 or 4 review questions and very uninteresting videos made from a possible Walmart camera. After about three weeks and having completed two of the online lessons, I lost my job early due to company downsizing, and was no longer able to visit my long distance girlfriend for our first year anniversary together. Then when I asked for a refund, his response was very dry, simply saying it's against his "terms of agreement" even though the course didn't start for another four months. After which, I tried to get my $795 back by making a claim on PayPal, which I lost. Afterwards he sent me a threatening letter, demanding another $499 for the online textbook "course", claiming that his "Lawyer" would get my passport number from my drivers license picture and I would be in for a "surprise" when I come to visit my girlfriend. I cancelled payment and he replied again shortly, stating that his Lawyer would make sure I get detained at the airport, and "Hope you enjoy life behind bars!", "Other than KY, if there's anything else I can bring you please let me know!" And he forgot the comma after "you"; some TEFL manager. I also heard his real last name is Crabbe, like the greedy bastard from Spongebob Squarepants. Also a possible rape suspect in Koh Samui!? It's no wonder the mafia there put a hit on him and he had to escape on a fucking rowboat. Can someone please do us all a favor and just rid this fucking space occupier from our planet?
I don't recommend this school. I used them a while back and thought they were pretty unorganised and sloppy. Everything seemed to be on the hoof. Actually, there was a post up before by a guy called "TEFL Teacher" that I commented on. For some reason it got deleted including my comments. I don't know why. I've put it back here because it corresponds roughly with my experience:
"Don’t give them a single penny! Island TEFL is the most fraudulent company I’ve come across (and I live in Thailand), The main guy, Phil, doesn’t do any of the work but instead uses a free teaching agency and you pay Phil essentially to hook up with them when you can do this yourself FREE. Phil is a poor business man, and was consistently rude and undelivered on every request I made, all due to his sheer laziness. Sister companies include ...... and ..........., I would avoid these too, they’re all set up to make a boat load of money from vulnerable and eager travelers."
