Visiting Professor – Hindi (ICCR Chair)
Indology Section, Classical East Dept.
University “St. Kliment Ohridski”, Sofia, Bulgaria
EXPERIENCE OF HINDI TEACHING: PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS
Hindi language is one of the most spoken languages all over the world. It is believed that Hindi has second place in the world of languages. Besides being the official language of India, Hindi is the main language of more than half of the country. States like Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan and Delhi use Hindi as main language. It is also used as a contact language in many other states.
Hindi language and literature are being taught in most of the universities in India as well as in several foreign universities under the patronage of the department of Indology. There are several problems in Hindi teaching whether it is in India or abroad.
Fortunately I got the opportunity to teach Hindi language and literature in India and abroad. I have had different experiences of teaching Hindi. I faced different teaching problems while teaching Indian students as well as foreign students. For example In India main problems are related to pronunciation, lack of interest in literature, standardization of alphabets, gender determination, problems arising due to regional influence etc. while teaching Hindi to foreigners have problem of environment, lack of interest in language learning, problem in teaching due to lack of country-specific knowledge, variation of grammar, unfamiliarity with cultural aspect etc.
I will express my views in this paper on what should be done as a solution and suggest several points regarding it. I would like to speak about the methods I adopted for Hindi teaching and to propagate the knowledge of Indian culture through a brief power point presentation.