About This Site
Thank you for your interest in Desipora! Hopefully we can help you learn your heritage language.
While I am not desi, I started Desipora because of my partner. She uses Punjabi to talk to her grandmother, but cannot read or write it. I wanted to learn Punjabi, but quickly found that without knowing Gurmukhi it was very difficult to distinguish some of the sounds within the language. I did look for a course, and found some resources that would be very helpful with a teacher, but none that I thought would be easy, simple and efficient for either myself or my partner. So I decided to make my own!
So, what expertise do I have to make these courses, since I am not fluent in any of these languages? My relevant qualifications are a Bachelor of Languages with two majors, Arabic and Japanese, and a minor in Indonesian, from the Australian National University. I then went on to complete my Masters of Education (secondary teaching, in the area of teaching second languages) from the University of Melbourne. I have worked as an educator for over 5 years in Victoria. These qualifications gave me a solid understanding of how languages function and the pedagogical background of how learning occurs. These are the skills needed to deliver a course or program such as this.
After I finished the Gurmukhi course, it was simple to use my Arabic skills to make a Shahmukhi course, then an Urdu one as well. After that, I figured I should just keep going.
I hope you find this course helpful and it enables you to feel a bit more connected to your heritage language.