OHS Japanese Continuers??? (1 Viewer)

[Eg155]

I'm going to a new school and they don't have a Japanese cont. class (...plenty of beginners though... -.-) so if i want to do it, it'll have to be through OHS.
They said our Jap teacher can help me if i have question about the OHS work, but i'm worried that if it turns out to be a bad that it'll be so detrimental on my ATAR seeing as oral and listening are really elusive tests- you don't know what you're in for until you get to the exam :L
Anyone who has done Japanese Continuers through OHS, please some advice!?

need to know whether to pick it up and drop either modern or physics... is it worth it?

 

[ReneeApple]

I did Italian Beginners through OHS and I actually found it really effective. They give you listening tracks so you're practicing your listening every week. I also found practice for the oral was great cause I called my teacher at least once a week and had a one-on-one conversation with her. She always knew the areas I had to work on because there was so much one-on-one time. It did get pretty difficult at times by not having a face-to-face teacher, but they have face-to-face lessons at least once a term and I always made sure to attend them. They helped enormously and gave you that extra push.

On several occasions, we met up with people studying Italian Beginners at their home schools and would practice talking with them. The majority of OHS students were ALWAYS more fluent and had a wider vocab than those of other schools. We had to practice once a week. They didn't do nearly the same amount of one-on-one conversation.

If you've got a Jap teacher at your school it would probably be even better for you when you have a problem. I'm from a totally non-Italian background and know absolutely no-one who speaks the language but I still managed to rank second overall, though I often wished I had someone I could talk to when I was stuck.

All in all I would say go for OHS if you want to do the course. For me it could be pretty overwhelming at times, there was a lot of work, but I genuinely think I learnt more effectively in the end then people doing the language at school.

 

[Dubble-u25]

I did Japanese Continuers through OHS. We have a Jap teacher at our school too though there wasn't enough people for a class.
The prelim year, the work was overwhelming, they only allocated 1 week to complete an entire booklet - there are 21 booklets.
The HSC year, there was much less work and you had 10 days to complete half a booklet - there are 16 in total.

Personally, I hated going to the face-to-face days, the lessons were REALLY boring. I remember the very first face-to-dace day and about 70 students turned up and on the very last only 35. Also, without the presence of a teacher you will be tempted to bludge. Overall, if you are really passionate about Japanese and willingly to work extremely hard and your japanese is pretty strong (you may have to compete with students who have one japanese parent kinda unfair i know), then go for it.

EDIT: forgot to mention that jap continuers scales just as good as chem and physics.

 

[petermeetswendy]

I did Japanese Continuers through OHS. We have a Jap teacher at our school too though there wasn't enough people for a class.
The prelim year, the work was overwhelming, they only allocated 1 week to complete an entire booklet - there are 21 booklets.
The HSC year, there was much less work and you had 10 days to complete half a booklet - there are 16 in total.

Personally, I hated going to the face-to-face days, the lessons were REALLY boring. I remember the very first face-to-dace day and about 70 students turned up and on the very last only 35. Also, without the presence of a teacher you will be tempted to bludge. Overall, if you are really passionate about Japanese and willingly to work extremely hard and your japanese is pretty strong (you may have to compete with students who have one japanese parent kinda unfair i know), then go for it.

EDIT: forgot to mention that jap continuers scales just as good as chem and physics.

+1
I remember doing Prelim Japanese Cont. @ OHS, they told me just to do the CP and forget the booklet, then recently my Japanese teacher at my school, who I could of have if there were enough people in my class (I was the only one doing it), said that I shouldn't listen to my OHS teacher because the exercises in the book would benift my Japanese.

Also, it depends on who you get. Some OHS teachers really do help you and engage you with learning, but others are complete helpless - I switched teachers half way through term 1 this year because my last teacher was a complete arsehole, after one piece of bad work, she was saying, "Drop now or drop at the end of the year". T.T"

But seriosuly, if you love Japanese and you know that you are going to do well, go right ahead. ^.^

 

[entersandman]

I'm going to a new school and they don't have a Japanese cont. class (...plenty of beginners though... -.-) so if i want to do it, it'll have to be through OHS.
They said our Jap teacher can help me if i have question about the OHS work, but i'm worried that if it turns out to be a bad that it'll be so detrimental on my ATAR seeing as oral and listening are really elusive tests- you don't know what you're in for until you get to the exam :L
Anyone who has done Japanese Continuers through OHS, please some advice!?

need to know whether to pick it up and drop either modern or physics... is it worth it?

I had a couple of friends who did Jap Cont for their HSC a few yrs ago and I don't think they did very well.
At least, I know one of them got a band 3 and he studied really hard for it as far as I'm concerned. But I heard they give a lot of homework and you have to constantly submit it every week, so a lot of the content to learn depends on your independence and initiative. I'm guessing that's why maybe my friend lost motivation the last minute cause I do vaguely remember him complaining about the workload.
I think it also depends on if you're lucky to be assigned to a good tutor. I also heard rumors that the tutors aren't very motivating and just monitor your work, ensuring that you're not struggling and keeping up to date with the material.

But yeah, a few a years ago, I was in the exact same scenario as you and this dilemma finally influenced me not to take it at OHS cause I didn't trust some external centre to teach me the stuff though I wouldn't mind taking it if we managed to get enough students to make a class at school.
Also, I found that in yr 10, the content was a lot harder and more in-depth language as opposed to the basics back in Yr 8 & 9. My marks pretty much went from 90-100% in my assessments in yr 8&9 to 70-80% in yr 10, sometimes even struggling and I would get as low as 60%. I suppose I lost a bit of confidence, interest and felt quite intimidated by the content to be honest, by the end of the yr.
So I guess it's up to you. If you're killing it at yr 10 level and really enjoy it, then by all means go ahead and enrol (I would too if I was in your shoes) but if you're like me, then probably not.