Hindi as a Second Language in a Multilingual Classroom

I would start with a diagnostic, not a blanket remedy. The test shows two distinct problems: Devanagari decoding and spelling for Odia-medium students, and formal register for Hindi-medium students. I would run a four-week cycle with three strands. Strand 1 is 15 minutes of daily Devanagari practice using minimal pairs and word-building from known Odia words; this is not babyish if framed as spelling patterns. Strand 2 is comprehension with bilingual glosses: students read a Hindi passage and discuss it in Odia first, then answer in Hindi, so the target is meaning-making rather than translation. Strand 3 is writing clinics where the nine Hindi-medium students act as language models in mixed pairs, with rotating roles so they also learn to explain rather than only correct. I would keep the grade-level text and standards but scaffold the language. I would tell the headmaster that teaching only in Hindi would cut off the 31 Odia-medium students from the support they need; maintaining standards means keeping the learning objective, not the medium of explanation. I would assess progress with a short weekly dictation and a comprehension passage, not another full test.

Both are script or register choices, not moral failures. For the Odia-script essay, I would mark content and Hindi language separately if possible; the student may have strong ideas but lacks Devanagari fluency. I would give a temporary transcription allowance for this task and set a six-week goal to write the same essay in Devanagari, with daily practice. I would not award full marks for script correctness if the task explicitly tests Devanagari, but I would not zero the content. For the Bhojpuri forms in a formal letter, I would use a contrastive approach: show the same sentence in Bhojpuri, standard Hindi, and a formal letter opening, and ask the student to identify the audience. Bhojpuri is not wrong Hindi; it is a different variety. The assessment criterion is appropriateness to the formal letter, so I would deduct only on the register strand and give credit for communication. The judgement is to separate linguistic prejudice from the actual learning outcome and to make the hidden rule of audience explicit.

I would use them as language partners for specific, short tasks: paired reading where one reads and the other follows, or a phrase hunt where they find formal alternatives in a text. I would train them to prompt rather than correct: 'Can you say that another way?' instead of 'That is wrong.' Their own learning must not stall, so they would have extension tasks on idiom and style, and their assessment would include explanation quality, not just right answers. I would rotate pairs so no student is permanently cast as the expert or the novice, and I would never use the Hindi-medium students to translate entire lessons, which would burden them and let me off the hook. I would also acknowledge that the two Munda-speaking students may need a third language bridge, using pictures and oral Odia where helpful. The judgement is to mobilise the classroom's linguistic diversity as a structured resource while protecting both groups' learning and status.