DesiLearn

A U.S. Department of Education
International Research & Studies Grant

Bengali
Gujarati
Hindi
Kannada
Kashmiri
Malayalam
Marathi
Nepali
Panjabi
Sinhala
Tamil
Telugu
Urdu
    

Mission

The South Asian Languages K-12 Research Study is designed to document and describe all of the South Asian Language programs for children in the U.S. This will allow the South Asian language community to marshal and strengthen existing resources for the teaching of these languages.

• What is the current state of South Asian language education for K-12 school-aged students in the U.S.?    

• What do teachers and administrators involved in these programs report as the needs of their programs? 

Welcome to DesiLearn, the home page of the South Asian Languages K-12 Research Study.

We are interested in learning about both heritage and community-based programs in addition to academic programs.
The George Washington University – in collaboration with The Alliance for the Advancement of Heritage Languages, the South Asian Language Resource Center (SALRC), an external evaluator, and an advisory board of scholars, administrators, and national South Asian heritage community leaders – will develop and execute a three-year study to gather comprehensive data on South Asian language programs (credit-bearing and non-credit bearing) from communities across the U.S. Upon completion of the research study and evaluation of existing resources and an overview of needs, a final report will address the short-term and long-term actions that should be implemented to strengthen South Asian language programs for school-aged learners in the U.S. The report will be published and the findings disseminated in professional language teaching conferences.