Japanese Distance Education

[Colanopy]

(Ah I'm new so don't kill me if I'm doing something wrong x_x)
Hi so I was wondering if anyone here has had experience with doing Japanese via Distance Education or whatever it is? I had a subject clash for next year (3/4) and between methods chemistry and japanese, I figured that Japanese would be the better one to do through Distance Ed..... I've been doing fairly well in Japanese so far, I'm pretty organised and I feel I have the motivation to pull through.. I hope.
Has anyone gone through this, and have advice? Will it be really hard? Was this a really dumb decision?

[Adequace]

I'm not sure about taking a LOTE over distance ed, have you considered going to a Japanese weekend school? There's obviously disadvantages to this as well, but if you're a capable Japanese student, going to a weekend school could be more beneficial.

[Colanopy]

I've considered this, but I don't really know anything about them... Like if they cost money, how close they are, etc. And I'm not sure if it will be worth all the extra effort when I also will have to be studying for all my other subjects. But at the same time it seems really beneficial and.. I honestly don't really know :\

Also I can still go to my Japanese teacher from this year for help, so that's definitely a positive

[sarangiya]

I've considered this, but I don't really know anything about them... Like if they cost money, how close they are, etc. And I'm not sure if it will be worth all the extra effort when I also will have to be studying for all my other subjects. But at the same time it seems really beneficial and.. I honestly don't really know :\

Also I can still go to my Japanese teacher from this year for help, so that's definitely a positive

Personally, being a school-based Japanese 3/4 student this year, I would not recommend doing Japanese through DECV. I'm not saying it's impossible, because depending on the school, doing self-study could be more effective. However, there is only so much you can do by yourself. What comes to mind particularly is speaking.
Sure, talking over the phone to your Japanese teacher is an option but there's more to just the language when doing the oral component of the exam. And besides, talking to someone over the phone is probably not sufficient practice. If you had a native Japanese tutor and went to VSL after school you might get a bit more in, but there's so much to consider including your proposed workload and how much stress a LOTE might put on you (languages are not known for having small workloads lol).
I know a guy doing Japanese SL via DECV and he has good language skills, so I think like him, if you worked hard and put in effort, you would definitely get a fair score. But I just feel that you would have to put on hold any ideas of getting 40+ raw in it (unless you already have good language skills, of course).

In the end, I don't think anything should dissuade you from taking it if you want to. Have you talked about it with your school Japanese teacher? Try and find some students who did do Japanese through DECV and ask for advice or their opinion.
Good luck and just go for what you feel is right

[Colanopy]

Hmm that oral component really does make it hard to work with... But I think I still do want to do DCVE because Japanese is honestly my favourite subject, and I really, really wouldn't want to drop it. I do need to think about how I'll improve on the oral bit though... Well I do have a friend who is a native Japanese who I could try talking to (it's so embarrassing though haha) and I can like try doing oral practice with my teacher from this year after school / during frees? I definitely realise language DCVE might be absolutely crazy though x_x
Also apparently my Japanese teacher did DECV Japanese when she was younger, and she said she could help me, because she's experienced it and knows what parts I'll likely need help with.

Also one thing I don't quite understand is: How do SACs work, and how does SAC ranking apply, what with having no class cohort thingy???

Thanks for advise 

[babushka818]

Hello! I'm in year 11 this year and regretfully our school didn't have enough students to run a class for year 11 German, so a group of about 5 of us were given the opportunity to study via VSL (online course, not contact classes).

Obviously, there may be differences in German and Japanese SL, but for the point of view of experience with the VSL, I'll offer my 2 cents

I don't have experience doing year 12 as of yet, but for year 11, the course was okay. Our school didn't run it very well though, and though we had a supervisor at school, there was little support offered to us unless we sought it ourselves after hours.

Each week, we are expected to submit a workset that has a range of activities on it by the Friday for marking, including voice recordings, comprehension, writing activities with prompts, a lot of grammar practice, etc. It is good because no content is skimmed over, but your resources are generally pretty limited. I don't know if that is different for year 12, or in fact for different languages perhaps, having known no one who has completed language 3/4 by distance as of yet.

So this year, every 2 weeks, we each had a scheduled phone lesson, in which teachers would test us on vocabulary and grammar, we had oral assessments by phones. This year we did role plays, informal conversations, teachers would ask questions based on various topics we'd been studying which we'd answer. The assessments are done with no notes allowed, but fortnightly oral lessons you do get your oral booklet, so it's good practice for the oral exam. However, many of us did feel that the oral "practices" before the SAC with our VSL teacher were inadequate, or we may have wanted some extra practice. For the year 12 German students at our school, we decided to do practice role plays and conversations to get in our preparation for oral sacs, just so we could both benefit and they'd get some practice too, which was also good because like in the exam, we didn't know them too well, as it will be with our examiner. We also saw our supervisor and the supervisor at your school will supervise all sacs, and is in the room making sure you don't cheat for oral sacs (they don't supervise fortnightly phone calls though)! So while waiting for our scheduled oral sac, we'd do some practice with her for maybe 15 minutes, and some lunchtimes we'd see the year 12 German teacher to get some practice, or to look over our work, edit writing tasks from worksets, etc.

So hopefully that alleviates some concern with the oral aspect. I don't really understand how anything else works for year 12, because I assume unlike year 11, you don't have to learn like 18 new grammar cases/conditions and practice that, its more writing practice or whatever, so I don't completely know how that works. But what I will recommend, is that if you have Japanese teachers, or ex-students or anyone who is native Japanese, use them as your resources. Don't necessarily need a tutor unless you struggle with content. Get teachers at school or others to read your written work and edit it for you, do speaking practice with them. For us for next year, they are giving us a lot of teacher support, like having teachers there for us during free periods who we can get help from, etc. I don't know if you'll be offered so much support, but even this year, if we went to a teacher, they were willing to help, so definitely try that! Your Japanese teacher you mentioned will definitely become your best friend next year haha!

On a side note, for German, 3 seminars were held. These are basically full days at the Multicultural Hub in Melbourne City, where we review what we've learnt, meet the entire cohort in person and our teachers (there are 3 German VSL teachers that each get assigned a third of the cohort) and they give us tips on preparing for upcoming sacs. These are generally pretty helpful and a good way to get to know the strength of your cohort as well!

Regarding your sacs and everything (again I am experienced but this is my guess)- you may be the only one doing Jap VSL at your school, but you aren't the only one in the state! Everyone that your teacher teaches through the VSL distance course is technically your class, which is pretty much all distance education Jap students in the state. So based on that and your SAC marks, you will be ranked (I assume!- hoping someone more experienced can shed light on this!) Your SACs are run internally, meaning the SAC is mailed to your supervisor and you sit it, under supervision by your supervisor, at school, and it is mailed back to VSL to be marked, and the rubrics are sent back to you. Regarding the supervisor- I don't know what you know about this, but the school usually does your enrolment with the VSL, and they will elect a teacher to be your supervisor. Unless the course is not offered at your school (which I assume is not the case with you!), it should be a teacher who teaches your language of study, who will be responsible for you and running your SACs, and are generally your go-to for any help you need.

Note that all this is from a year 11 VSL Student's perspective, so lots is assumed, but does have a solid basis! Just be sure to not restrict yourself to the VSL, definitely branch out and get help from school, ex-students, etc and read the study design to ensure you're covering everything, as you would at school. Best of luck!!

[Colanopy]

Wow thank you so much!! You really cleared up a lot of things that I was hazy about! This actually sounds like it will be quite the interesting and unique experience too

Seriously though, thanks for going into so much detail and giving so much advice I feel a lot better about this now, and there are so many people around me who can help, I'm sure this will go okay. Best of luck to you as well

[babushka818]

Wow thank you so much!! You really cleared up a lot of things that I was hazy about! This actually sounds like it will be quite the interesting and unique experience too

Seriously though, thanks for going into so much detail and giving so much advice I feel a lot better about this now, and there are so many people around me who can help, I'm sure this will go okay. Best of luck to you as well

Haha no worries! Glad I could be of help to you! Just note that some things, including resources, might be different for Jap and German. Also in terms of helping you with exposure to the language, things you can do on the side to help familiarise yourself with the language and culture more, I have a post I made regarding this for German here:

Re: German Resources

This basically outlines all my strategies for becoming familiar with a language, which might be helpful for you, because in our school, we had some native German/Austrian teachers so that exposure was great, but with the VSL, you don't get much out-of-context knowledge, which can actually be pretty helpful. So these are German-specific examples of how you can use these things, but I am sure you can search up all the things I mentioned in Japanese! Hope that helps, and you don't need all of it, even one or two will be great

Again that is all good, because you're school does run the subject you do have many available resources to you which is really lucky, saves you having to do contact classes, because that would probably be preferable if you don't have any in-school help because you have a teacher you meet with in person. If you don't mind, I might just outline some of my, say, predictions about what you will do next year and the benefits I see in doing distance education languages, but note these are JUST PREDICTIONS, with no real basis for them!

So generally the people I'm doing distance ed German with have considered that you learn all/most of the grammar and basic stuff in year 11, and we think there should be a stronger focus on applying all these concepts to writing and comprehension and speech contexts, as opposed to learning more concepts and doing the standard 'grammar practice activities'.
The workload with the VSL wasn't too bad this year, but I did fall behind at times. The teachers are very nice and understanding though. Contact with them occurs primarily through email, and they sit in an office and wait for emails all day, (my teacher does only work from Tuesday-Thursday 9am-4pm, but still) so they usually get back to you the same day. (often everyday excepting weekends actually, they still check emails!)
So each workset for us consisted of around 10-15 activities each week. There are grammar tabs in which they give us the theory and examples and then some practice questions. Lots of reading comprehensions and listening tasks. In Unit 1 we had a few writing tasks but in Unit 2 there's usually one every week which can get tedious.
Teachers don't mind if you fall behind or work ahead, but you have to have completed up to certain stages to be eligible to sit a SAC, which occur in set weeks. (Eg listening SAC for unit 2 to be completed in week 12, must have everything up to workset 10 completed). In SAC weeks, we usually had a workset on revision and assessment preparation, which only had 3/4 activities, which revised grammar, and if the SAC was to write a story, it might be to practice writing the intro of a short story, so everything was pretty relevant (providing you are up to date of course).
For next year, I presume there might be a focus each week on revising/practicing putting together different grammatical concepts, as we tend to learn them individually throughout years 7-11. Also probably will be lots of focus on writing activities and lots of comprehension each week because that's featured in exams a lot, and it again puts everything together.
The oral lessons will revise what you do in worksets, but I assume a lot of them will include aspects of practice for your oral exam which is definitely helpful.

I also want to mention juggling the workload and how my school is running it (just for perspective!). So basically because it wasn't our choice to do German outside school, we were allowed to take it through distance ed and get a block of free periods in school (except one of my friends who wanted to do 7 subjects this year). This is very helpful because we could use the free periods in school to study/work for our school subjects if we needed work handed in or any other reason, and we could do the language worksets at home. So I personally really appreciated this, but obviously depends on your preference.
The work itself wasn't too hard this year, and you could complete many of the smaller activities in an hour, which was often about 60% of the activities. Writing and comprehension could take between 30min-2hours though, but I usually did the grammar first because it was easy and then did writing and comprehension over several days. Teachers often take 2-3 days to get everyone's workset marked, but they won't mark anything in your workset until its all done (there are colours that indicated completed, incomplete or waiting for teacher marks status). So if you don't get it in on Friday, you can do it over the weekend and it usually doesn't matter. As I said, teachers are understanding, if you forget your oral lesson, email them and arrange another time, if you aren't prepared, email and ask to do it a couple of days later or the next week (which works well because oral lessons are every 2 weeks). Generally you seem very dedicated and organized so you should be fine! It is a lot of diligence though, because in school you have deadlines and are constantly reminded, sometimes I'd have a busy week and forget it was Friday and just not have done it, so just be aware that it should have just as much importance in your school subject focus as all your other subjects, because I know I didn't prioritise it enough this year and that's why I'm not as competent as I'd like to be for next year.

I don't want to talk to you about the standard/if they have high or low expectations, because it may vary by language and by teacher, and also cohort (lots of native speakers take the VSL study option, so there are very experienced and very inexperienced speakers taking it!). Generally though, you don't need to have the competency of a native speaker at all to score well or achieve a good rank (though admittedly it is hard!).

Thank you for the appreciation and good wishes! I think it's a great option for you because you don't seem to shy away from responsibility or hard work, so commend you on that! 

**oh dear these are getting too long, I start and just don't stop! Sorry!

[Colanopy]

You are seriously helping me out so much here!!! I swear I know like everything just from you  Also don't worry, I'm glad they're long, means I get more and more advice and explanations 

Those resources are quite interesting, I'll start checking out some stuff which is the Japanese equivalent. It's nice to be able to build up language while doing different things. Also it's good to know that the teachers are generally understanding and nice. Of course each teacher is different, but are they generally easy to talk to? I feel like there might be awkwardness speaking one on one.

Also the extra free periods will definitely be great! I get double the amount, since I'm doing a 3/4 this year, so hopefully this means I'll have more time to like focus and just relax a little and de-stress, if I ever get overwhelmed and stuff. Also the thing I love about Japanese is that I sort of consider the homework as a kind of 'procrastination'. I mean like, I'm procrastinating from doing homework by doing other homework! Win win situation

Thanks for going out of your way to offer so much help!!! You've really made this seem a lot better than I initially thought it would be, since I was kind of freaked out that I couldn't do it at school. Thanks!!!

[sarangiya]

Also apparently my Japanese teacher did DECV Japanese when she was younger, and she said she could help me, because she's experienced it and knows what parts I'll likely need help with.

Also one thing I don't quite understand is: How do SACs work, and how does SAC ranking apply, what with having no class cohort thingy???

Great you got some really nice advice and are committed to Japanese. It's a great language so if you can enjoy learning it, that's all that really matters.
You mentioned that your teacher did Japanese at DECV? Do you mean she taught at DECV? Or that she's non-native and did Japanese SL through DECV?
If it's the latter, I would strongly suggest getting a tutor or finding an actual native speaker to practice with. With all due respects to your teacher, a non-native wouldn't cut it in my opinion. Even at my school, we have a non-native teacher who lived in japan for ages and is married to a Japanese man but she still doesn't teach VCE Japanese. Do you have any nearby schools your school is partnered with? Could you use their resources?

I think the other poster gave you fantastic advice on the SACs and how they work. But yeah, from me also: the DECV class will be your cohort.

Best of luck.

[Colanopy]

Oh, whoops. She's from a Japanese family but I think she moved here or something. I can't remember Also there is another Japanese teacher who is a native from Japan, so I can ask him for help too

[babushka818]

You are seriously helping me out so much here!!! I swear I know like everything just from you  Also don't worry, I'm glad they're long, means I get more and more advice and explanations 

Those resources are quite interesting, I'll start checking out some stuff which is the Japanese equivalent. It's nice to be able to build up language while doing different things. Also it's good to know that the teachers are generally understanding and nice. Of course each teacher is different, but are they generally easy to talk to? I feel like there might be awkwardness speaking one on one.

Also the extra free periods will definitely be great! I get double the amount, since I'm doing a 3/4 this year, so hopefully this means I'll have more time to like focus and just relax a little and de-stress, if I ever get overwhelmed and stuff. Also the thing I love about Japanese is that I sort of consider the homework as a kind of 'procrastination'. I mean like, I'm procrastinating from doing homework by doing other homework! Win win situation

Thanks for going out of your way to offer so much help!!! You've really made this seem a lot better than I initially thought it would be, since I was kind of freaked out that I couldn't do it at school. Thanks!!!

aww thank you really happy my advice/experience is helpful!

That would be a great idea, sorry it wasn't direct to Jap! That's true, some of my favourite options are to watch movies you like dubbed in your language (best to do ones you're most familiar with the script of so its easier for you to translate) and, as sarangiya has definitely stated, to talk to native speakers- pen pals from Japan or people you might know actually.. I have a friend doing Japanese outside of school, year 12 next year, I don't know if she's doing distance ed or contact classes though.. I will check because she might be someone you can work with! She also works very hard and loves her languages

The teachers that I know for German (I don't know if there are others, or different ones for year 12) are nice and understanding and yours should be too! Initially it was awkward calling up our teacher for the oral lessons, but they were nice and friendly and they ask questions about how you are, and its up to you to answer in english or Jap initially, I started in english but now I will answer in German. The oral lesson is obviously done in your language, and teachers know that speaking is often everyone's worst/scariest part so they do make you feel comfortable, and you get used to it. I used to freak out for the 15 minutes before my scheduled lessons, but now its so easy. You have a booklet, and it has everything you will do in each oral lesson (including the oral sacs), plus spaces to write your answers, so often all you do is read things out, unless its a conversation of course! The teachers are also pretty lenient as well so yes they are pretty easy to talk to. It takes a few lessons to break the ice with them, but after you do, its almost like talking to a friend haha.

I was going to be doing that! But I'm not too efficient with my time and I don't think I'd use two sets of spares very well and I'm taking really hard subjects so I'm picking up further maths next year as a backup so I get one block of spares and hopefully a fallback to my ATAR Spares are definitely helpful, if I have really intense days, sometimes me and my friends will just play cards in a spare, this is harder now because this year our school got a teacher to overook spares and make sure everyone's working, but she likes me so but I'm glad that will work out for you, it's great to have that! It's also really really good that you like Japanese, that will be very beneficial to your motivation which is crucial to do well in language study (or any study!) via distance. I know me and my friend hated German this year (we had an awful teacher last year so we knew little of the content for this year so it wasn't much revision, we got frustrated a lot!) If you're happy doing it, you will do well, like anything I suppose I'd procrastinate German with other subjects so we're pretty opposite!

That's all good haha, I hope I have alleviated what I could of your apprehensions. Our German class for this year got cut because we only had 8 people, which was past the cut off for classes to run and we were all so pissed off because last year's class ran for 9 students. Another 3 people dropped it because they didn't like DECV too. It wasn't an option that was widely explored so we had no clue what we were in for, so I'm happy I can offer you my experiences in advance. In fact I think that's part of the reason a lot of us didn't take it seriously this year, just because we didn't really know anything about why we were thrown into this and what to do.

Hope this helps, and if you'd like you can PM me and I will see if I can send you some screenshots of my VSL work so you know the interface and what the work was like for us

Great you got some really nice advice and are committed to Japanese. It's a great language so if you can enjoy learning it, that's all that really matters.
You mentioned that your teacher did Japanese at DECV? Do you mean she taught at DECV? Or that she's non-native and did Japanese SL through DECV?
If it's the latter, I would strongly suggest getting a tutor or finding an actual native speaker to practice with. With all due respects to your teacher, a non-native wouldn't cut it in my opinion. Even at my school, we have a non-native teacher who lived in japan for ages and is married to a Japanese man but she still doesn't teach VCE Japanese. Do you have any nearby schools your school is partnered with? Could you use their resources?

I think the other poster gave you fantastic advice on the SACs and how they work. But yeah, from me also: the DECV class will be your cohort.

Best of luck.

I personally don't feel tutors are necessary, nor that they can offer you much that you can't get from sources that will help your exposure to a language, but that's just my opinion: If you want personal help it is definitely effective!
I think it is important to have a native speaker (or a few!) to help you, because you will get that perspective and the accuracy with pronunciation etc, that you can't get elsewhere, but non-native speakers can also be good. I think it is easier to learn from non-native because they understand the learning process you go through as a second language, but the practice is probably more beneficial through natives!

Thanks for your credits also, glad my assumptions were on the right track and thanks for clearing it up!

[Colanopy]

Thanks again So glad you've been here to help me out so much

[alexander15]

As someone who has done Japanese distance ed this year as a 3/4 subject - I thought that I might add my 2 cents.
By all means, distance ed staff do everything that they can to make sure that you are on track to do well with your Japanese studies, and the course is very structured and easy to follow. But as stated, your preparation for the speaking will most likely be lacking compared to the other kids taking Japanese at school.
You may be able to get exposure, and plenty of speaking practice from Japanese friends and the like, however, the pressure of the exam is different to that of speaking with friends.
There are not many opportunities to practice your oral with the VSL staff, other than on the phone; and that doesn't really teach you how to prepare for two VCE examiners quizzing you on your SL, while you are anxious and not thinking straight.

By all means, if you want to distance ed, go for it. It is not a burden to do at all. However my advice is to make sure you find some way have a mock oral in person. Not with a Japanese tutor you're comfortable with, but an oral in exam conditions, preferably with teachers that you don't know.
This really was my downfall, because although I had prepared for the exam over the phone etc. I was not use to the environment, and therefore just wasn't able to perform at my best.

VSL is great if you decide to do it. Just make sure that you take the necessary steps to make up for the lack of face to face encounters.

Good Luck

[babushka818]

You may be able to get exposure, and plenty of speaking practice from Japanese friends and the like, however, the pressure of the exam is different to that of speaking with friends.
There are not many opportunities to practice your oral with the VSL staff, other than on the phone; and that doesn't really teach you how to prepare for two VCE examiners quizzing you on your SL, while you are anxious and not thinking straight.

By all means, if you want to distance ed, go for it. It is not a burden to do at all. However my advice is to make sure you find some way have a mock oral in person. Not with a Japanese tutor you're comfortable with, but an oral in exam conditions, preferably with teachers that you don't know.
This really was my downfall, because although I had prepared for the exam over the phone etc. I was not use to the environment, and therefore just wasn't able to perform at my best.

VSL is great if you decide to do it. Just make sure that you take the necessary steps to make up for the lack of face to face encounters.

You've made some excellent points here I'd love to say! For me also, I was just wondering, how would you recommend going about this? I mean, I have German teachers at my school who we do, say, mock orals with, but as you say its better to do them with people you don't know or aren't familiar with. How and where do you find these sources? Because that wouldn't in theory, be any different to if you were doing it in school. Wouldn't it in fact be advantageous through VSL in that sense because you have contact with more people you don't really know? In school, you would know your teachers well, so you'd still have to find an external source. What sort of person do you recommend? A different teacher, tutor, ex student, native student/pen pal?

Thanks for your tips!