The Last Lesson NCERT Solutions: Understanding and Talking About the Text (CBSE Class 12 English Flamingo)

The Last Lesson NCERT Solutions (CBSE Class 12 English Flamingo)

The end-of-chapter exercises for “The Last Lesson” ask CBSE Class 12 students to move between close reading, personal reflection, and vocabulary building. This post walks through a guided approach to each section of the NCERT exercises — Understanding the Text, Talking About the Text, and Working with Words — with model answer approaches you can adapt in your own words for full marks.

Understanding the Text

How the Villagers Suddenly Value Their Language

One question asks what shows that the people in the story suddenly realise how precious their language is, and why. A strong answer points to the village elders filling the back benches, old Hauser bringing his worn primer to follow along, and M. Hamel’s emotional speech describing French as the clearest language in the world and as a “key” to freedom for an occupied people. This realisation occurs precisely because the language is about to be taken away — loss, more than habit, is what awakens appreciation.

Franz’s Thought About the Pigeons Singing in German

A second question asks what Franz might mean by wondering whether the pigeons will now be made to sing in German. This line can be read more than one way, and NCERT itself notes there is no single correct answer. One reading is that Franz’s grief has become so total it extends even to the natural world; another treats the line ironically, highlighting how far-reaching the occupier’s language mandate feels when a child’s imagination stretches it even to birdsong. Either reading should be supported with reference to Franz’s emotional state at that point.

Talking About the Text

Language as the Key to Freedom

Discussing M. Hamel’s statement that holding onto one’s language is like holding the key to a prison under enslavement, students are usually asked for real historical examples where a conquered people had their language suppressed or a new one imposed. Useful directions include colonial policies that discouraged local languages in schools and administration, and situations where a dominant group’s language became compulsory for education or employment, sidelining regional languages spoken at home. Language loss is rarely only about communication — it also affects opportunity, cultural memory, and self-respect.

Linguistic Minorities Within a State

Another question asks what happens to a linguistic minority within a larger state, and how such groups keep their language alive. A well-rounded answer notes that minorities often face pressure to adopt the dominant language for education and employment, leading to their own language being used less among younger generations. Communities have historically kept languages alive through community language classes, local media and literature, mother-tongue cultural or religious practice, and constitutional or legal protections for minority languages.

Pride in Language and Its Limits

The final talking point asks whether pride in one’s own language can go too far, introducing the term “linguistic chauvinism.” A balanced answer acknowledges that pride in a mother tongue is healthy, but becomes harmful when it turns into hostility toward other languages or is used to exclude or discriminate against their speakers. Linguistic chauvinism refers to this extreme, exclusionary form of language pride.

Working with Words

Tracing Word Origins

The chapter highlights that English has absorbed vocabulary from many other languages, and asks students to research the origins of a list of borrowed words with roots in languages including Turkish, Dutch, Arabic, and Japanese. Rather than memorising a fixed list, students should grasp the underlying point: English’s willingness to absorb foreign words is part of why it functions as a global language, connecting neatly back to the chapter’s theme of language and cultural exchange.

Inferring Meaning from Context

A second exercise asks students to choose the option that best explains several underlined expressions from the story, such as a phrase describing something as jarring and unexpected, and one about holding fast to one’s language. Rather than guessing from the words alone, reread the surrounding sentence each time — the story’s context almost always makes the intended meaning clear.

Noticing Form: The Past Perfect Tense

The chapter also draws attention to the past perfect tense, used to describe an action that occurred earlier than other events already being narrated in the past. Students are asked to locate further examples of this tense within the story and explain why the author uses it. Good answers should note that Daudet uses the past perfect at points where Franz recalls something that happened before the main events of that particular morning, helping to layer the story’s timeline and distinguish background information from the unfolding present-tense action of the last lesson itself.

Exam Tip

When answering Understanding the Text and Talking About the Text questions, always anchor abstract discussion points back to specific moments or lines from the story rather than writing generalised opinions alone; examiners consistently reward textual evidence over unsupported assertion.

Related Reading

• The Last Lesson Summary and Analysis (CBSE Class 12 English, Flamingo Chapter 1)

• The Last Lesson Themes: Language, Identity and Freedom (CBSE Class 12 English Flamingo)

• The Last Lesson Character Sketch: Franz and M. Hamel (CBSE Class 12 English Flamingo)

• The Last Lesson: Exam Tips, Important Questions and Revision Checklist (CBSE Class 12 English Flamingo)

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Test Your Knowledge

Q1.What shows that the villagers suddenly realise how precious their language is?

The elders filling the back benches, old Hauser bringing his worn primer, and M. Hamel’s speechFranz skipping school, the bell ringing late, and the soldiers drilling outsideThe holiday announced for the village and the closing of the post officeThe mayor’s order to open the school and the soldiers’ visit to the classroom

Q2.What does NCERT note about Franz wondering whether the pigeons will be made to sing in German?

There is one correct answer: it shows Franz’s fear of the soldiersIt is a printing error that students should ignoreIt is a factual claim that must be checked against the textThere is no single correct answer, and it can be read more than one way

Q3.What is linguistic chauvinism?

The healthy pride a person feels in their own mother tongueAn extreme, exclusionary pride in one’s language that turns into hostility towards othersThe habit of studying many languages to learn about other culturesThe study of how a language changes over time in a region

Q4.What is the past perfect tense used for in the story?

Predicting what will happen after the story’s last lesson endsGiving commands that M. Hamel issues to the class during the lessonDescribing an action that happened before other past events being narratedDescribing a habit that still continues into the present day

Q5.Which of these is a way linguistic minorities keep their language alive, according to the post?

Community language classes, local media and literature, and legal protectionsGiving up their language so children can learn the dominant oneBanning other languages from schools and workplacesKeeping the language within the family, with no classes or media