Salut angelica,
As a former OHS student hopefully I can offer some advice for you. To answer your first question, I think it's a matter of if you enjoy it. As you say, you are enjoying it at the moment, which is a big advantage that you have straight away. As you know, it takes effort to send in all the work every week/two weeks, god knows that it can get too much sometimes. But because you like it it doesn't seem like such a big deal. The disadvantage to OHS is that you don't have a teacher breathing down your neck every French period saying "DO YOUR WORK!", so there's no-one to push you. For that it takes a lot of self-motivation (I promise, it's the last time I will use the word 'motivation' in this post) and work, but, to go around in circles, the 'work' you do for French doesn't sound so much like a chore if you are enjoying it, doesn't it...
Another disadvantage to OHS is that speaking can get a little tricky if you don't have a teacher breathing down your neck every French period saying "YOU SAY IT LIKE THIS!", so there's no-one to correct it if you get it wrong straight away. But the OHS teachers were always available to ring and visit so that quickly became irrelevent.
Having had a French class in my home school in year 9 and 10 I don't suppose that I could answer that, but going between two ways of learning the stuff was a bit to get used to, problems just stemming from the fact that I needed to get into a routine to keep up, which was eventually mastered (I think!)
"Did you enjoy it and felt that you were learning?" - Yes on both counts. Again, the teachers were always accessible to ask questions straight away, phoning, emailing, faxing, visiting in person... The lesson days also helped put a face to the voice and to meet the other people suffering the same fate(!). Also the Languages B seemed to be inundated with resources - reading, listening etc - so the teachers can provide you with a wealth of stuff to help you learn French. (Now that they have
TV5 on satellite TV, which I never got to experience, I imagine that it'll be even better.)
Comparing having 'normal' French lessons to going through OHS, I can honestly say that I prefer OHS. At least the work was always in front of you and, as was the case with my French teacher in year 9/10, having teachers off sick a lot isn't an issue and doesn't really matter because there's always some form of teacher you can contact there. Also, doing the work at your own pace I found was so much better, because you could skip the stuff that you understood already and if you didn't get something you could dwell on it for a bit longer than a teacher in a classroom setting might. So correspondance learning does have that ability to be a lot more flexible.
As for enabling to continue in Year 11 easily, all I can suggest is keep motivated (there, I said it... too bad!). And
do keep your routine going with the packages, otherwise you'll just keep procrastinating forever. (Towards the HSC it's even easier to be lazy...). So in short, if you keep your love for French and a steady discipline for it you shouldn't have any problems and should ace it.
Hope this wasn't too much syrupy drivel, and that it helps!
Cheers,
chepas
.
