Complete solutions to every exercise of NCERT Flamingo, Prose Chapter 1, “The Last Lesson,” exactly as printed in the book, with a full model answer under each, starting with the “Notice these expressions” box printed at the start of the story and the in-text comprehension checks. Write your own answer first, then compare.
1 Notice These Expressions
Before the chapter begins, the book prints a box: “Notice these expressions in the text. Infer their meaning from the context.” Here is what each one means where it appears in the chapter.
| # | Expression | Meaning in the context of the chapter |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | in great dread of | Very much afraid of. Franz started for school very late that morning and was “in great dread of a scolding”, because M. Hamel had said he would question the class on participles and Franz did not know the first word about them. |
| 2 | counted on | Relied on; expected something to happen and planned around it. Franz “had counted on the commotion” of an ordinary school morning to get to his desk without being seen, but that day everything was as quiet as Sunday morning. |
| 3 | thumbed at the edges | (Of a book) worn and soiled at the edges from years of being turned over by fingers. Old Hauser had brought “an old primer, thumbed at the edges”, a sign of how long and how much it had been used. |
| 4 | in unison | All together, at the same time. On ordinary days the children’s lessons were “repeated in unison, very loud, with our hands over our ears to understand better”. |
| 5 | a great bustle | A lot of noisy, busy activity. Usually, when school began, “there was a great bustle, which could be heard out in the street”: desks opening and closing, lessons repeated aloud and the teacher’s ruler rapping on the table. |
| 6 | reproach ourselves with | Blame ourselves for. M. Hamel tells Franz, “We’ve all a great deal to reproach ourselves with”: the parents, who preferred to put their children to work, and M. Hamel himself, who says he has been to blame also, had all put off learning. |
2 In-Text Comprehension Check
NCERT prints two short comprehension checks inside the story itself, before the formal exercises. They are answered here too, since they are part of the book’s own text.
Q. What was Franz expected to be prepared with for school that day?
Answer: He was expected to be prepared with the grammar rule for participles, since M. Hamel had said he would question the class on it.
Q. What did Franz notice that was unusual about the school that day?
Answer: Instead of the usual noisy bustle, the school was completely still, as quiet as a Sunday morning, and he could see his classmates already seated through the window. M. Hamel spoke to him kindly instead of scolding him, and was wearing his beautiful green coat, frilled shirt and embroidered black silk cap, kept for inspection and prize days. What surprised him most was the village people (old Hauser, the former mayor, the former postmaster and others) sitting quietly on the back benches that were always empty.
Q. What had been put up on the bulletin-board?
Answer: It was the notice announcing the order from Berlin: only German was to be taught from then on in the schools of Alsace and Lorraine.
Q. What changes did the order from Berlin cause in school that day?
Answer: It turned an ordinary lesson into the very last French lesson at the school. M. Hamel wore his fine clothes, the village elders came to sit in on the class, and every lesson that day, grammar, writing and history, was taught with unusual care and attention.
Q. How did Franz’s feelings about M. Hamel and school change?
Answer: Franz had feared and disliked school and M. Hamel’s ruler. Once he learnt this was the last lesson, he felt sorry for M. Hamel: the idea that he was going away made Franz forget all about his ruler and how cranky he was. He regretted every lesson he had not learnt, and his books, once a nuisance, became old friends he could not give up.
3 Understanding the Text
Q. The people in this story suddenly realise how precious their language is to them. What shows you this? Why does this happen?
Answer: Several details show this. The village elders, who never normally attend school, come to sit quietly on the back benches to honour the last French lesson. Franz, who used to find his books a nuisance, suddenly treasures them like old friends. M. Hamel delivers a passionate speech calling French “the most beautiful language in the world,” and old Hauser weeps while spelling out the letters with the babies.
This happens because the Prussian order, that only German may be taught from tomorrow, is about to take the language away completely. As M. Hamel says, “as long as they hold fast to their language it is as if they had the key to their prison”, so its value becomes clear to everyone only once it is on the point of being lost.
Q. Franz thinks, “Will they make them sing in German, even the pigeons?” What could this mean? (There could be more than one answer.)
Answer: It can mean that the order to replace French with German feels, to a child’s mind, so total and so unnatural that it seems to extend even to the birds and to nature itself, nothing feels safe from it.
It could also be read as a child’s way of expressing how absurd and extreme the whole idea feels: since even pigeons obviously cannot be taught any language, the thought highlights just how far-reaching and unreasonable Franz feels the order to be.
A third reading is that it shows Franz projecting his own new-found love for French onto everything around him, so completely has his view of that morning changed.
4 Talking about the Text
Q. “When a people are enslaved, as long as they hold fast to their language it is as if they had the key to their prison.” Can you think of examples in history where a conquered people had their language taken away from them or had a language imposed on them?
Answer: This is a discussion question with more than one acceptable answer, since it asks students to connect the idea to their own knowledge of history. One example is British colonial rule in India, where English was promoted in administration and education alongside, and sometimes in place of, local languages. Another is the story’s own setting: the imposition of German on the French districts of Alsace and Lorraine after the Franco-Prussian War. In such cases, language is one of the things a ruling power tries to control, as M. Hamel’s line suggests.
Q. What happens to a linguistic minority in a state? How do you think they can keep their language alive? For example: Punjabis in Bangalore, Tamilians in Mumbai, Kannadigas in Delhi, Gujaratis in Kolkata.
Answer: A linguistic minority often finds that the majority language dominates schooling, government work and daily public life, so its own language risks being used less and less, especially by younger generations. It can keep its language alive by speaking it regularly at home, teaching it to children, forming cultural associations, celebrating festivals and literature in that language, and using community classes or weekend schools where the local school does not teach it. Many such communities also keep their language alive through neighbourhood associations, religious gatherings and regional cultural events held in the mother tongue.
Q. Is it possible to carry pride in one’s language too far? Do you know what ‘linguistic chauvinism’ means?
Answer: Yes, it is possible. Pride in one’s own language becomes a problem when it turns into looking down on other languages or the people who speak them, rather than simply valuing one’s own. This attitude, of carrying pride in one’s own language too far, is called linguistic chauvinism.
5 Working with Words
Q. English is a language that contains words from many other languages. Find out the origins of the following words: tycoon, barbecue, zero, tulip, veranda, ski, logo, robot, trek, bandicoot.
Answer: tycoon, from Japanese; barbecue, from Spanish (originally from a Caribbean Taino word); zero, from Arabic ṣifr (“empty, nothing”), reaching English through Italian and French; tulip, from Turkish/Persian; veranda, from Portuguese (via Hindi); ski, from Norwegian; logo, from Greek; robot, from Czech; trek, from Afrikaans/Dutch; bandicoot, from Telugu.
Q. Notice the underlined words in these sentences and tick the option that best explains their meaning.
Answer:
(a) “What a thunderclap these words were to me!” → (ii) startling and unexpected.
(b) “When a people are enslaved, as long as they hold fast to their language it is as if they had the key to their prison.” It is as if they have the key to the prison as long as they → (ii) are attached to their language.
(c) “Don’t go so fast, you will get to your school in plenty of time.” You will get to your school → (iii) early enough.
(d) “I never saw him look so tall.” M. Hamel → (b) seemed very confident.
6 Noticing Form
Q. Pick out five sentences from the story with the past perfect form (“had said,” “had come,” etc.) and say why this form has been used.
Answer: Five examples from the story:
1. “M. Hamel had said that he would question us on participles.” The saying happened before the morning being described, an earlier past.
2. “For the last two years all our bad news had come from there.” This describes something true over the two years before this particular morning.
3. “I had counted on the commotion to get to my desk without being seen.” The counting-on happened in Franz’s mind before he actually reached the door.
4. “Hauser had brought an old primer, thumbed at the edges.” Hauser brought it before the moment Franz notices it.
5. “My books, that had seemed such a nuisance a while ago… were old friends now.” The seeming-like-a-nuisance is placed earlier than his present feeling of them as old friends.
In each case, the past perfect marks an action or feeling that happened before another past moment already being narrated, showing which of two past events came first.
7 Writing
Q. Write a notice for your school bulletin board. Your notice could be an announcement of a forthcoming event, or a requirement to be fulfilled, or a rule to be followed.
Answer (sample notice):
NOTICE
Inter-House Elocution Competition
All students of Classes 9 to 12 are informed that an inter-house elocution competition on the theme “The Importance of Mother Tongue” will be held in the school auditorium next Friday at 10 a.m. Interested students must submit their names to their class teacher by Wednesday. Each participant will be given three minutes to speak.
Head of Department, English
Q. Write a paragraph of about 100 words arguing for or against having to study three languages at school.
Answer (sample paragraph): Studying three languages at school is a genuine advantage rather than a burden. India itself is a country of many languages, and knowing more than one opens the door to more literature, more people and more job opportunities. A student who learns their mother tongue, a national link language and one more language such as English builds a wider set of skills than a student who studies only one. It also trains the mind: many people find that switching between ideas comes more easily once they know several languages, and that learning further languages later becomes easier too. The extra effort in school is repaid many times over in later life.
Q. Have you ever changed your opinion about someone or something that you had earlier liked or disliked? Narrate what led you to change your mind.
Answer (sample narration): I used to dislike my school’s morning assembly, thinking it was simply a waste of ten minutes before classes began. During my final year, our assembly moved to student-led sessions, and I was asked to organise one myself. Preparing it, I realised how much thought had always gone into choosing the news, the thought for the day and the songs, and how much it actually set the tone for everyone’s whole morning. Since then, I no longer see assembly as wasted time, but as one of the few moments in the school day when the whole school pauses together.
8 Things to Do
Q. Find out about linguistic human rights.
Answer: Linguistic human rights refer to a person’s right to learn, use and be educated in their own mother tongue, and to use it in public life without discrimination. International bodies such as UNESCO recognise the protection of linguistic diversity and minority languages as part of basic human rights, since language is closely tied to a person’s identity and culture, as this story suggests.
Q. Find out about constitutional guarantees for linguistic minorities in India.
Answer: The Indian Constitution protects linguistic minorities in several ways. Article 29 protects the right of any section of citizens to conserve their own language, script and culture. Article 30 gives linguistic and religious minorities the right to establish and administer their own educational institutions. Article 350A directs every state to provide facilities for instruction in the mother tongue at the primary stage of education. Article 350B provides for a Special Officer for Linguistic Minorities to safeguard these rights.
Q. Given below is a survey form. Talk to at least five of your classmates and fill in the information you get in the form.
Answer: This is a classroom activity, so every student’s own survey will differ depending on their classmates’ backgrounds. A worked sample is given below to show the kind of answers such a survey usually produces; individual answers will vary.
| S.No. | Languages you know | Home language | Neighbourhood language | City/Town language | School language |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Hindi, English | Hindi | Hindi | Hindi | English |
| 2. | Punjabi, Hindi, English | Punjabi | Hindi | Hindi | English |
| 3. | Tamil, Hindi, English | Tamil | Hindi | Hindi | English |
| 4. | Bengali, Hindi, English | Bengali | Hindi | Hindi | English |
| 5. | Marathi, Hindi, English | Marathi | Hindi | Hindi | English |