I just did Hokkaido International Foundation's 2 month intensive program in Hakodate, Hokkaido. Some things I learned:
These programs are meant to be transferable to a University. In that respect they much teach the same amount of coursework (or what is deemed sufficient) to be able to transfer credit. This means you will learn 4 months of material in half the time (in my case). In order to achieve this goal, the program will burn through material in one day and give you about 4 hours of homework a night, including learning about 50 new words plus kanji (around half or a third of those words), plus readings, plus whatever else. An intensive program, unless is says it stresses speaking and communication, is going to be mostly reading I would guess. At least thats the truth for my program at the second highest level. The highest level had all those readings and even more, 4 hours of homework, had to learn ALL the kanji for those 50+ words a day, but what was cool was they spent the whole class in discussion about the articles and also in debate. My class was deadpan, and didn't really start discussing things until the last month. Sucks since I didn't have reading skills but have excellent speaking/listening skills, but since I partied hard and didn't really study much before the program I was only placed in the second highest class.
But I'll tell you something, I learned a farkload of kanji, have great reading skills now, and really learned a lot from the program. I hated it when I was in it since I didn't do all the homework, rather I opted to spend time with Japanese kids in the local universities Kyudo club among other fun activities. But now that I'm out of the program I'm thankful for everything I learned. And the one most important thing, I got a fat steel toed boot in my ass about studying Japanese seriously, learning Kanji, and pushing farkin hard in my studies.
Didn't just help in Japanese, helped me in all of my school I think. But we'll see in October when I really start.
So long story short, intensive program = intensive reading unless you are at a lower level Japanese class. Once you get the basics down its all about reading anyway. So I wouldn't go into an expensive program like this unless you are at a higher level. Same thing for study abroad.
Preparation is key.
I'd put myself in the Intermediate level in terms of listening and speaking. However, I'm looking for some program that's not so much on listening and speaking skills, but more on reading. I can read Chinese, so learning kanji is not a problem for me. I'm thinking about taking a couple months off between job switching, and maybe do studying in Japan. Any suggestions?