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Hindi-challenged?
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Learning Hindi has always been troublesome for kids down South. Knowing the exact meaning helps
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EXPRESS RIGHT Learning Hindi can be easy
Hindi movies? Yes, yes. Hindi as a second language? Ugh! This is the typical reaction of Mr. and Ms. South India. If Hindi movies are okay, why not the language?
Incomprehensible?
"Hindi is totally incomprehensible'' exclaimed Jaya, throwing up her hands in despair. Though a post-graduate working as an executive, Jaya finds it difficult to tutor her 10- year-child who is in Class 5. Today many children are facing problems studying Hindi. By Class 5, the grades in Hindi start going down and parents are forced to resort to tuitions. "When we learnt Hindi in school, the lesson was explained to us and we were told to write the answers ourselves, but today everything is written on the board for the children to copy," reminisces a Hindi teacher. So, is it because of the way the language is taught?
A Hindi tuition teacher who prefers to remain anonymous says the first thing that the children ask her is to make the answers shorter and easier so that it is easier to memorise. Unable to understand the chapter or its meaning clearly, the child resorts to memorising the answers without any enjoyment or interest. For them it is a necessary evil to be tolerated till Class 9 when they can switch over to French, Malayalam or Sanskrit.
Change the question a little or ask a question from the text, the answer of which has not been given earlier and the child is lost.
Understanding the content is important. So, translating the chapter to English is very important for understanding the meaning. Thus, a very common refrain is this: "We can't understand anything in class because the teacher teaches Hindi in Hindi. She doesn't give an English meaning''. Constant repetition of grammar rules and interactive classes of spoken Hindi is one way of improving the vocabulary. Listen to this Hindi interactive class, where children have to chip in :
Four people were travelling by car. It was late at night........The first child said it was windy and nobody was on the road. The second child added, "suddenly a truck came," and the third child finished the story by saying, "the car had an accident and all the people died". His vocabulary was so limited that he decided to make the story short and to the point!
MANJIT KAUR
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