Ergative omission and the Maithili speaker in Hindi class
A Class VII Hindi teacher in a Darbhanga school has 40 students whose home language is Maithili. In an October diagnostic they wrote ten dictated sentences and a short paragraph. Twenty-six of 40 wrote 'राम खाना खाया' for 'राम ने खाना खाया'; 19 wrote 'लड़कियाँ खेल रहा है'; 31 used 'बहुत अच्छा' correctly but only 6 used 'अत्यंत' or 'काफ़ी' appropriately. In comprehension, 33 answered literal questions and 7 answered an inference question. Sana, a fluent speaker at home, writes a vivid four-line Maithili paragraph but freezes when asked to write the same in Hindi. The headmaster wants a unit test on the Bhakti poetry unit in two weeks, and a parent complains that allowing Maithili in class is 'spoiling' the children's Hindi. The teacher has eight periods before the test and a departmental instruction to complete the workbook exercises.
1. Classify the error patterns in the data and design a three-lesson remediation sequence. Explain what each lesson is meant to change.
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The data contain at least four different problems, not one 'weak Hindi' problem.
- ने-omission (26/40). 'राम खाना खाया' is a rule-based pattern, most likely home-language transfer. Confirm before teaching: ask two children to say the same sentence in Maithili and then in Hindi. If Maithili does not mark the transitive perfective with a postposition equivalent to ने, the child is not careless; the Hindi rule has not been noticed. Remedy is contrast, not red ink: 'राम ने खाना खाया' versus 'राम सो गया', 'बच्चे ने पानी पिया' versus 'बच्चा सो गया'. The pair makes transitive/intransitive visible.
- Agreement (19/40). 'लड़कियाँ खेल रहा है' shows number-gender agreement is not automated. Remedy: substitution tables with pictures of one and many, oral chaining, then ten written sentences.
- Register gap (only 6/40 use अत्यंत or काफ़ी). This is not an error but a missing resource. Remedy: word wall and sentence completion, not correction.
- Inference (7/40). Remedy: teacher think-aloud with 'why' and 'how do you know' questions.
Three lessons. Lesson 1 (ने): five minutes oral contrast, ten minutes sorting eight sentences into 'ने' and 'no ने' in pairs, ten minutes writing a short paragraph about a meal. Lesson 2 (agreement): picture cards, verb cards, oral chain, ten written sentences. Lesson 3 (inference and register): teacher reads four lines, models one inference, pairs answer two 'why' questions, then use two new words in own sentences.
Why this order. ने affects every past-tense narrative and is rule-based, so it gives the largest return. Agreement recurs in the same sentences. Inference and register need some fluency first. Each lesson ends with a three-item exit ticket so movement is visible before the unit test.
2. A parent says allowing Maithili in class is spoiling the children's Hindi. How do you respond, and where do you draw the boundary?
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Respond privately, with evidence, and keep the goal firmly on Hindi.
- Acknowledge the concern. The parent is afraid that the child will not pass the Hindi paper. Agree with the goal: all written work and the unit test are in Hindi.
- Explain the narrow use of Maithili. It is a two- or three-minute oral bridge, not a replacement. 'If Sana can say the idea in Maithili, she has the idea. We then help her say the same idea in Hindi.' Show the four-line Maithili paragraph and the Hindi sentence she produced after oral rehearsal. The Maithili paragraph proves she can structure a narrative; the task is transfer, not invention from zero.
- Use contrastive examples. 'In Maithili we say it this way; in Hindi the same idea needs ने. Let us practise the Hindi pattern.' This is more useful than banning the home language, which usually produces silence rather than Hindi.
- Set the boundary clearly. Maithili is for oral rehearsal, clarification and comparison. Hindi is the language of the textbook, the notebook, the workbook and the test. Code-mixed answers in the test are not accepted. The child is not allowed to write the Hindi paragraph in Maithili and call it done.
- Invite the parent to see the notebook and set one home routine: the child tells the day's story in Maithili at home, then writes three Hindi sentences about it.
Do not overclaim research. Point to what the parent can see: Sana's oral fluency, her written freeze, and the Hindi sentences that appear after two minutes of oral rehearsal. The boundary is oral support, not lowered standards.
3. Build an eight-period plan before the unit test that covers the Bhakti poetry unit, the workbook, and the remediation. Justify the allocation.
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Allocation: 4 periods on the Bhakti unit, 2 on remediation, 1 on workbook and revision, 1 on the test and feedback.
- Periods 1–2, meaning first. Read the poems aloud; students mark words they do not know. Use a three-question routine: What is the poet saying? Who is he speaking to? Which line tells you? Do not start with metre or biography. The diagnostic shows literal comprehension is strong (33/40) but inference is weak (7/40), so the oral questions should be 'why' and 'how do you know', not 'what'.
- Period 3, language in the poems. Pick six lines and notice the forms the class missed: two lines with ने, two with subject-verb agreement, two with a stronger synonym for अच्छा. This links the poetry to the grammar data instead of treating them as separate subjects.
- Period 4, performance and inference. Pairs prepare a two-line recitation and one inference question for another pair. Teacher records two strong inferences on the board as models.
- Periods 5–6, remediation. Lesson 1 on ने and Lesson 2 on agreement, as planned, using sentences from the poems where possible. Keep the exit tickets.
- Period 7, workbook and revision. Complete the departmental workbook pages in class, not as homework, so the teacher sees the errors. Give a five-item practice test matching the real blueprint.
- Period 8, test and feedback. Return the marked test with one corrected sentence and one strength per child.
Justification. Four periods protect the literary content; two periods attack the highest-frequency errors; one period protects the workbook instruction; one period closes the loop. The test is not the end of teaching, so feedback is inside the eight periods. If the headmaster asks why not six periods of poetry, show him that the grammar errors appear in the poems themselves, so the remediation is also poetry revision.