I’m curious what criteria you all have for whether a language school is good or not. I only have gone to Shida but thought it was okay. I had some good teachers. At the beginning levels, I feel what you do outside the classroom matters even more than in the classroom. OP mentions that he’s around HSK4. For that level, I feel a language school won’t be anymore effective than another one.
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To answer your question about intensive courses in Taiwan, rather than talk about how little your teacher will teach you in the class, I say “take your pick” and just go to whichever one is the closest to where you live. Also, if you know what works for you, make a clear list of what works for you and find a “community tutor” on Italki to supplement whatever language intensive you pick, even if it’s one of the aforementioned “terrible” places. My list includes:
- Not wasting my time telling me that pinyin is not as good as zhuyin (for the love of god, its exactly the same sounds represented with different symbols. Its not a dick measuring contest! Im not paying you to listen to you complain about how I learned phonetic representations differently than you did!! One is not better than the other and even if that were the case, I’m not in the class to hear about it!!!)
- Giving me input before expecting output. That means the teacher gives me input, not the audio button on Pleco or the recording of the text. I can do that on my own time!!
- Correcting my tones when they’re wrong but not wasting all of class nitpicking every detail. Thankfully, I’ve learned how to tell tutors to shove it when they’re on a power trip over every individual sound that comes out slightly “wrong”. You have to learn to stand up for yourself in Chinese class. Too many teachers really are there only for the power trip, which is ingrained in them because that’s all they know from their own education.
- Always allowing the use of notes. Covering up my notes and telling me to “just remember” something is wasting my time. If I remembered how to say it, I wouldn’t be checking my notes. If you, the teacher, had provided me with sufficient input, I also wouldn’t be checking my notes.
- I decide what’s “too easy” for me. I know what I don’t know and I choose the texts and topics based on the gaps I’m trying to fill in.
- I have Outlier Dictionary on Pleco. If I want to know the details of specific characters, I will check that. I do not need to waste class time being told what Outlier already has spelled out for me. Do not waste my time quizzing me on the specific definition of characters ive never seen before or drawing maps on the board of other words that use that character. If I want to know them, again, Pleco!
On the one hand, the above makes me sound like a jerk, on the other, ive got too much experience in the failings of Chinese class department to want to waste any more of my time (even more than money honestly) on people not providing me what I need.
For the record, my Chinese also improved enormously in one semester of Chinese intensive (basically non-existent to intermediate-high), but it was done at an enormous expense to my mental and physical health. I’m also just now, a full decade after finishing the language intensive I did, and eight years into teaching students how to find language learning materials that are level-appropriate, coming to terms with how little written Chinese I actually retained. Yeah, I can make my way through an HSK 6 text and understand what im reading, but I actually wont know ~30-40% of the words. Being forced to read texts that were so far above my level for the entire intensive set me up for failure in self-study —- I should have been reading HSK 3 level texts with a handful of new words to gain the reading fluency necessary, rather than tackling 60-100+ new words with every text at the HSK 5 level i was placed in. Language intensives will make you think the later is the only way. You actually learn a lot more if you follow Krashen’s i+1 idea. But language intensives are way beyond that and students who “can’t handle it” quit. Thus, outcomes for places like ICLP (do they claim to use “proven methods”?) are a load of bollocks.
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If you like the sound of vomit I suppose.
Learn it on the street. Just walk up to some guys chewing betel nuts, light up and start talking about what’s on your mind. They may answer back in Taiwanese, but hey all part of the experience.
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Read aloud every day. I do this while doing cardio. This can get you talking. If you read longer like an hour or two, your brain will still be in Chinese mode when you put down the book.
I have a theory I’ve never tested.
You read, write, listen and and similar — let’s say bopomofo or pinyin books if you are at HSK 4 — 10 to 12 hours a day.
At the end of a week you no longer stuck but rather taking a step to becoming fluent. If you feel it worked then try to keep it going as time permits …, 5 hours a day m- f but 10 hours Sat Sun.
Keep Chinese material on your phone or iPad or pocket with you to learn when waiting. Google has free books with bopomofo.
Use ChatGPT to interact in Chinese with a bot
Get a significant other or language exchange partner. No matter where you are on Earth there’s Chinese people around
Nothing that I suggested require you spend money.
Browsers have read aloud option so find Chinese material read to you when you are doing something else
Keep your airpod in your ear to pipe Chinese into your head while driving commuting etc
YouTube has lots of free teachers. Put the play speed in slow and repeat what teacher says
If your pronunciation is not good get 1:1 help
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Surely there must be SOMEBODY delivering intensive Chinese lessons and doing an actual good job of it, somewhere in Taiwan. One person??
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Your spoken language can improve immensely that way, but I can say from experience, as someone who arrived in Taiwan already at an advanced level, if you dont put in the effort to read Chinese for comprehension, you’re not going to get better at reading comprehension. And when you only talk to people or listen to the news, you’ll miss out on a lot of language that people use. Or you spend years thinking a word is one thing, only to encounter it in a text you’ve finally decided to pick up and realize that its something completely different. There is something to be said for paying someone to hold you accountable for all four language skills. The problem is that most of these people will waste your time. But if you’re attending classes, you’ll be thinking about what other things you can do to learn or pulling out your phone to look up characters you’ve always looked past on store fronts and street signs because you’re in that “mode.”
I might recommend listening to audiobooks and podcasts so you can hear the language rather than reading it aloud. If you’re hearing the language before producing it, your pronunciation will improve without as much need for a teacher. I got Glossika and started at “I’m a complete beginner” so I could recall phrases or speak along with the recording, but I also upped my listening of audio and podcasts. Reading aloud if you’re not 100% sure of the pronunciation and cadence can ingrain bad habits (wrong pronunciation). Reading aloud in your native language = not paying attention to the meaning of the words (too much focus on how you’re saying the words, no brain capacity to process the meaning), so the same is definitely happening in a second language.
What’s your level? Are you trying to start from zero or do you already know a bunch? OP is HSK 4, which means any group classes anywhere are already dwindling down to NTNU and ICLP for the most part. Few other language schools have enough students beyond Book 4 of “A Course in Contemporary Chinese” (which is supposed to be HSK 4) for general classes, let alone intensives, but it never hurts to ask.
My experience in class at the upper levels was teachers using the same “rambling on about other things” (even if in Chinese, dude, I have Chinese-speaking friends at this point. I don’t need to hear you go on about creepy people taking photos of women using public restrooms in Japan! Its totally irrelevant to anything were talking about!) and “you need to know this!” about very specific details that we didn’t need to know at all. That was general group class. As I’ve said before, a waste of my time even more than my money. Hence, a limited number of students / course offerings at the upper levels at all.
If you’re a total beginner, I never took classes with Terry Waltz but I read her book and apply a lot of her methods (from her website) in my Chinese teaching. I would trust her classes are really effective, based on how amazing the methods she teaches are and the one YouTube video of her teaching a class of total beginners that she posted. You dont need an intensive if you’re getting meaningful, comprehensible input. Your brain sorts it all out just fine without you pulling your hair out.
I’m also at a HSK4 (old) level having passed the test with a fairly good score back in December 2017 and have maintained my level up until now. I would be most interested in one on one or one on two lessons, not neccessairly at an official school. Strongest area is speaking, second is listening, third reading, fourth writing (using pinyin input).
You could look into wen hua university mlc program.
I studied 1,5 years there (almost 10 years ago)
Teachers were good, price was reasonable and
You could tell them what you want to get out of the programm (eg. I wanted to improve my speaking, but don’t bother with handwriting at all. So I did all the homework on the computer)
By HSK 4 (old), I assume you mean the one that’s been being used for the past decade, since you took the test in 2017, as opposed to the old old one and because theres the new new HSK that’s getting started in the next few years but may or may not have started? 
.
If you want 1:1 or 1:2 lessons, there are plenty of schools around that offer them, in person and online. Daily 1:1 for one hour is going to get you farther than 4 hours of group classes a day, so the cost ends up being a wash (unless you’re paying the NT$2700 or whatever per hour that ICLP charges…) Shop around until you find a teacher you like. Or get on Italki and find a community tutor (ideally someone who doesn’t have a lot of teaching experience, so they’re not stuck in their ways), be very clear about what you want before you start your first lesson, and clearly articulate to them when you need them to change something.
The thing about being at a more advanced level (but absolutely not at “reading native level texts” yet) is that teachers have no idea what to do with students. Hence the “drinking out of a firehouse” approach at all schools. I got an ACTFL OPI and WPT score of Advanced-Mid in 2016, which, while not directly corresponding to the other standards, should be B2-C1 on CEFR or HSK 5 (allegedly…). But I find that I am a lot more motivated when I sit down with a (by most Chinese teachers definition) “too easy for me” text. This text is “I can understand 100% of the content and easily guess the meaning of ALL unknown words”, but there are words in there that i don’t yet use in my own speaking and writing. This works WAY better than reading through a text and creating a long list of all the words and characters I don’t know. That’s because the brain processes information a lot better when its in context, rather than having a bunch of out of context words on your favorite SRS app. Seeing words i already understand the meaning of but never use on my own, in the context of the text im reading, creates the necessary pathways to get those words “falling out my mouth” rather than me going “oh, theres a word for that. What is it? I just learned it!” (Which means i didn’t actually learn it).
But everyone needs to figure out what works for them. And nothing about your studies needs to be set in stone. Always be reading the latest research in SLA (on Chinese specifically!) and willing to change anything about your methods based on what you find out.
And that’s why you probably want to find one or a collection of 1:1 tutors instead of going to a language intensive…
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Yes. As far as I’m aware, the new new HSK started already.
This is absolutely what you need - you are getting comphrensible input at a level just above where you are at now and this is the fastest way to make progress. It’s frustrating that the teachers are like nope. They are not working for your best interest, they are just working by the rules.
This right here.
I would appreciate it if you could link me some good articles you have come across before.
A combination of italki+HelloTalk would work well here (I’m not in Taiwan).
Get a Chinese girlfriend or boyfriend. Don’t look for her near NTU because she will speak English.
What would be the wrong answer to OP’s request for intense Chinese instruction? ICLP at NTU. It’s very expensive and Chinese is a marathon. If you exhaust your resources you might quit.
How much does McDonald’s pay? 80 NT hour? But working at McDonald’s is hard. I bet you could find someone who would accept 300 NT every day to chat with you 5 hours in Chinese. If you go to a school the Confucian administration or authorities gets almost the whole fee. You hire someone and whatever you pay them the teacher keeps it all.
What does history tell us? Colonel Barrett was an American and the translator for US officials meeting Mao and Chiang Kai Shek. What was his method? 5 hours every day 1:1 conversation, 3 hours on his own reading and writing
I met a guy who was a translator in the army. He said he was sent to language school and he was required to use the language he was learning all day long and they were given only 1 hour a day after dinner to speak English.
Where’s the opportunity? That’s what you should be thinking
Chinese and Taiwanese are a frog in a well. So what should you?
You should climb down the well
Try this: get a room with a Taiwanese family or in a community where they don’t speak English. If you go just 2 MRT stops “beyond the pale” you will find Taiwanese who act as if they’ve never seen a foreigner before. They have never spoken English with a foreigner. There is your opportunity
Is this just about learning Chinese? No. Have you attended coding camp? It’s python or whatever all day long (instead of Chinese). Result is in a short time a person can become good enough to get a job as a programmer.
I met a girl who was a great dancer. She said she knew both but went to 2 week dance camp.
If You immerse yourself, you have an immersion school
Is it possible to find a Taiwanese girl in her 20s who doesn’t speak English? That would be great.
Go a few MRT stops outside the Taipei Main Station- GongGuan corridor. She’s there, waiting for you
It would be great to find a Taiwanese girl in her 20s who DOES speak English 
80 NT an hour?! Its not the year 2000 anymore! I don’t know anyone with an education making less than 180/hr in this country. I’m pretty sure thats minimum wage, actually? Language intensive group classes come out to cost ~NT$180-300/hr (or probably NT$800/hr at ICLP), per person. But that means multiple people are throwing money into the pot, so the school can make money off that and the teacher can be paid a reasonable salary too. If you want to go the 1:1 route, you’re not a very good human if you’re not paying your tutor at least minimum wage.
You can also try what this guy did and get a bunch of “language parents”. Long video, but shows how much you can acquire a “hard to learn” language with just language parents. Way more interesting way to learn than having grammar patterns explained at you and tones drilled in your general direction.
Everyone I meet who is in their 20s seems to be able to speak English.
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I’ve never heard anyone offer anything close to this price. They seem to think they are higher on the scale for Chinese language chat.
$800 per hour is probably the cheapest I’ve seen.
Wish I could find.
A few months ago, there were plenty of language schools with online classes for NT$650 an hour. All of those are now $750/hr on up. Plenty that are now NT$900-1200 and only if you buy a 50 class package or 20 classes a week, etc… But those are language training centers. I think they suggestion was to just find a random Taiwanese person.
The problem I have had with that (basically a “language exchange partner”) is that if both sides don’t know what they’re doing, it ends up being a waste of time — at that point you might as well walk up to the clerk at 7 or the breakfast stand or whatever and strike up conversations with these random people. Great practice, absolutely, but very different from a language intensive course where vocabulary and sentence structures are shoved down your throat and you must use them or fail or the course.
Italki is the website I keep bringing up because it’s the one everyone seems to suggest, but there are plenty others. I think Taiwan has a few online platforms for English (mainly) but also Chinese teachers. Full disclosure: I’ve never actually used any of them. But plenty of people have rates set at US$8/hr. That’s NT$240/hr, but I think the platform charges 15%, so the teacher will make about NT$200 (for “community tutors”, aka ppl without a teaching license, this isn’t a bad hourly income) You don’t have to worry about fighting with laobans or being charged insane rates for photocopied textbooks or “new student fees” or any of the other nonsense training centers try to pull here. If you don’t like your online teacher, you need only not sign up for the next class with them and pick someone else. Problem solved!
I ended up on a list serve I think after @ironlady had posted one of her Cold Character Reading studies. Now I can’t find the one that she had posted, but if you try to read (PDF) Cold Character Reading: A Chinese Literacy Strategy | Diane E Neubauer - Academia.edu (which is by Diane Neubauer, the only other person on earth who seems to be trying to legitimately improve Chinese language teaching on this planet), you’ll be asked to make an account and end up with nearly daily emails on the topic (obviously you’ll want to use a spam email if you don’t want a billion new emails coming in. Also, not all are in English/Chinese though…there’s a surprising amount in German??).
Anything about cold character reading is good for teaching (or I guess being) beginners in Chinese, but of course, as you know more and more words, your need for characters to distinguish between the homophones increases.
If you’re serious about Chinese language teaching (or even to a large extent, learning), Terry Waltz’s “TPRS with Chinese Characteristics” is really a great book. At minimum, it reminds you why so many (almost all of us) fail to acquire a second language (cuz everything about the teaching methods work against how our brain acquires language).
I also find that getting on YouTube and watching second language acquisition videos (note that they are different from language learning, which is a lot of “here’s how I learned a thousand words in three days” type videos) can remind me of what science shows works for language acquisition generally, as opposed to people just telling the world what they have heard to be true, but is actually scientifically proven to not work with the vast, vast majority of the human population…
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