Edutainment is the definition of a Dragonfly camp - Farang teachers entertaining Thai Kids with encouraged conversation and activities. There is no formal teaching on our camps - our team provides more of a show for the kids and the activities are all good fun while trying to get the kids to think for themselves. Typically camps are 2-3 days long but can be anything from a single day to a month.

Depending on the budget of the school, 25 students to one teacher is average, the smaller the group the more fun the camp is for students AND teachers! Once when some teachers got pissed the night before a camp and didn’t turn up, we had groups of fifty kids each - nightmare

Many schools have a nasty habit of waking the kids at some ridiculous hour (5am) in the morning to do “ morning exercise”. We are slowly but surely eradicating this madness.

Our camps start at 8am with breakfast, everybody’s favourite way to start the day. The students will then congregate in the home room as and when they are ready, where we will just have some homeroom fun. There is no other way to explain a homeroom; an experienced MC will just have a whole load of large group activities up his sleeve ranging from simple 20 second chants that the kids join in with to large games of cat and mouse.

At 10am, after a quick water break, we will start a walk rally. This is basically a rotation of the groups from teacher to teacher. There will be 5 – 15 bases, each with a farang teacher and an activity. The student will spend 5 – 15 minutes at each base gaining points for their group as they go (or not).

Lunch at 12 o clock followed by my favourite home room game which is not being disclosed I'm afraid In the afternoon, 100% exclusively to Dragonfly, the kids trek all over the camp following the “Treasure Hunt” for a couple of hours before the time comes to prepare for the evenings talent show.

We leave the students up to their own devices for the talent show and it is incredible to see what they come up with. Aside from the obvious singing and dancing we have had blind date type affairs, break-dancing competitions, magic tricks and my favourite activity - students taking the role of teachers.

Bed time is around 10pm depending on how cool the teachers are and our last job is to make sure all the students are accounted for, by that time we are so knackered there is only one place we are going - bed.

English camps used to be hard work Phil but one of my best attributes is laziness. Since I started running English Camps I have developed them to be more and more teacher-friendly. The activities that we use now are nothing like they were even a year ago and they get better all the time.

At the end of the day when we promote camps to prospective employees or volunteers as good fun, we are not kidding. No lesson plans or curriculum, no set routine, just games and activities for kids who really wanna be there. (That said - try being with the kids seven days in a row LOL)

In Thailand I have organised camps in Hua Hin, Pattaya, Khao Yai National Park. Also various different purpose-built camp complexes in and around Isaan and in schools all over Thailand. The best place was on top of a mountain near Udon Thani which was incredibly beautiful; the worst place was in Sri Saket in a field.

Dragonfly currently have 3 full time camp staff in our team aside from Martin and myself. We all live together in a big house in Korat. So yeah full time staff are needed but every weekend we have to bring part time staff up to help us too. Also, once every month or so we choose (No applications please) a very small rural school that could never afford a camp, get one provided for free We like to think we are doing our bit for the community. So from time to time we will have volunteers to help us too.

Dragonfly was Started by Martin and I earlier this year to bring English camps to Isaan.

The Dragonfly Team members consist of 5 experienced English Campers. We all have experience with English camps and we are all passionate about what we do. And we all work together to improve the camps all the time. Between us we have experienced English camps with 8 different companies and gained a total of over 25 years experience. This means we have a solid base of people who are serious about English camps, living in Thailand, and we know what goes down well and what doesn’t.

We try to be as flexible as possible for our schools so that every school can do one.

Your average local school cannot afford VIP air con buses so we will organize 'songteaws' for them. Don’t get me wrong, we can arrange a wicked camp in a 5 star hotel but we prefer to work with poorer schools where the kids are more fun and appreciative and our work can be more beneficial.

Aside from camps we also organize teachers for schools in Isaan if anyone is interested in teaching here, and we also place volunteers in home-stays with Thai teachers in rural schools for those people that really wanna learn something about Thai ways.

If anyone is interested in working part time on camps or full time teaching please contact us at www.thai-dragonfly.com

The first company I worked for doing camps was just as an instructor, which is where I learnt the basics, then at Media Kids I worked my way from Teacher to camp coordinator, where I made a lot of contacts etc and decided that Thailand was ready for Dragonfly. Everyone who comes to Thailand comes here to travel, but people with jobs here very rarely get to do so. English camps however take us to the beach, to the mountains and all over the country so there is never time to be bored.

I studied Events Management at university in England and that is essentially what this is, making sure that the staff are ready, the food is prepared and the kids are enjoying the event. The challenges involved – hmmmm. The biggest task is trying to get staff to do what they are supposed to. For instance we had a teacher from Bangkok up to do a camp and he decided that it would be a good idea to take a group of 30 7yr olds for an hours walk in the jungle without telling anyone – can u believe that??? The worst part is that he didn’t even think he had done anything wrong.

In my experience Thai kids are impressively independent and 'non-wimpy' compared to those back home. You can have 30 kids piled on top of 1 ten yr. old covering him with powder and the guy will just stand up and get on with it. Even if it hurt he will just carry on regardless.

Come on Phil, I don’t even know what a double sheep shank is. Is it from the Karma Sutra?? - and Gin-Gan Gooley was buried with my grandmother. No, to be honest some of our songs are really quite amusing and some of them would have shocked my grandmother (The gin gan gooly singer).

The kids we run camps for are not from Bangkok. Most of the kids we teach run a mile when they see 6 white faces arrive at their school in the morning and our job is to reverse the action by the end of the camp. We let the kids get to know the ferangs, socialise with them and partake in activities based around encouraging the kids to speak even if they speak incorrectly. Giving the kids the chance to use their English, just once will then give them a reason to learn the otherwise boring subject when they are in the classroom.

Yes I am thinking of becoming a paramedic. To be honest our staff (Jake for instance) are far more prone to injury than most of the kids.

Proper Planning Prevents Pathetically Poor Performances! But I must say that the people that run Media Kids do try. They are lovely people and they mean well, really well. I enjoyed working with MK and they gave me invaluable experience and training, but when it comes to getting pissed in breweries…

I sometimes wonder what it must be like to work in that crazy place, I have been there once in the last 6 months for two days. If I have lots of cash it is a cool place to go out.