Couldn't have picked a better programme

I did a 4 weeks immersion course at CLI in May 2019, and couldn't be happier with my experience. If I had had more time, I would probably have extended my stay by a couple of weeks. If you're considering doing an immersion course in China, CLI should definitely go on your shortlist.

First of all, I made great progress on my Chinese fluency in those 4 weeks, even though that is a relatively short time. Each week, you have 20 hours of completely tailored one-on-one lessons with three dedicated tutors (comprehensive, reading/writing and speaking/listening), moving at the pace that you need, focusing on the things you want to improve most. We used a textbook as a guide, but we did a lot of stuff outside of it, too. If you have a specific direction you want to take your Chinese in, or have a specific learning style, CLI is definitely really good at accommodating that. I arrived having studied a little Chinese beforehand, but there were also people there who arrived not speaking a word of Chinese, and people who were fairly fluent already, and they all seemed to be very happy with their individual programmes.

Outside of class, you're also in an environment where you can practice your Chinese all the time if you want. There are interns from the nearby university in the common area of the building at pretty much all hours, you can chat with them or ask them questions and they're really helpful if you're trying to do things like get a Chinese SIM-card or order things online.

Guilin is pretty laid back as a city, and because most people do not speak English, you really do get to practice "in the wild" every day. So even though it's not as vibrant as Shanghai, say, it's a better learning environment in my opinion.

Getting to know the other students was without a doubt my favourite part of the experience. Everybody's motivated, you get to meet people from all sorts of different backgrounds, and there's always people around to grab dinner with, have drinks on the roof with, or go places on the weekend.

So, definitely highly recommended, might even go again myself some time!