SiliconAndhra Mana Badi
MISSION
& VISION
UNESCO
feels that all moves to promote the dissemination of mother tongues will serve
not only to encourage linguistic diversity and multilingual education but also
to develop fuller awareness of linguistic and cultural traditions throughout
the world and to inspire solidarity based on understanding, tolerance
and
dialogue.
Taking inspiration from this, SiliconAndhra encourages children to appreciate the languages
and culture of India
and to become ambassadors of Indian culture to the American mainstream society
as they grow up in today’s global village. As you all know that Telugu language
is at the very heart of SiliconAndhra’s objectives. It is the most powerful
instrument of preserving and developing our tangible and intangible heritage
and culture. All of us who migrated from Andhra Pradesh dream that a formal
school would be started to teach Telugu language, our mother tongue, to our
children. Now that dream comes true in the form of SiliconAndhra Mana Badi.
It
is a common adage that parents are the first teachers to their children.
Despite the desire of migrated Telugu parents to teach Telugu to their young,
yet one notices that the parents don’t have the proper tools and methodology to
teach Telugu to their children who happen to go to local schools in America
where the medium of instruction is English and either Spanish or French is
taught as a second language. SiliconAndhra Mana Badi would like to fill that void with formal teaching
of Telugu.
The
formal teaching implies a class room interaction between the teacher and a
student, with a definite course outline and material for a given level. The
teaching ends with an exam conducted to assess the student's performance.
SiliconAndhra team prepared Telugu language
learning material in an unprecedented way with the support and guidance from
highly reputed Telugu linguists, professors, teachers and institutes like
Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore
and Telugu University,
Hyderabad.
Several proven and advanced learning tools would be used in teaching Telugu in
the ' Mana Badi ' in an interactive
and interesting way to all kids. 'Mana Badi'
will be offering classes in a neighborhood close to where you live.
SiliconAndhra Mana Badi would be using the language drills and exercises
developed after 35 years of research by CIIL linguists and academicians. SiliconAndhra would be
using a 'Language Lab' to help the children with proper Telugu pronunciation to
overcome their accent. We believe that this kind of extensive effort based on
proper methodology would immensely help children learn Telugu with interest and
excitement.
Mana Badi would
have four levels of course work (Duration of one year each) and starts with
Pravesam during 2007-2008 Mana Badi academic
year –
1. Pravesam – One Year
2. Prakasam – One Year
3. Prabhasam – One Year
4. Pramodam – One Year
At the successful
completion of each year course, Potti Sriramulu Telugu Viswavidyalayam would be
awarding a Certificate to all the students. SiliconAndhra is also working Department of Education to get
a foreign language credit for each student that complete the four years course.
In April 2007, SiliconAndhra started ‘Mana Badi’ classes
in Northern California. Mana Badi classes are being held in 13 centers in 8 cities.
175 students are learning Telugu every week in a very exciting live class room
environment. 18 volunteer teachers went
through training to teach Telugu in these classes.
Students and teachers have
been provided with high quality teaching materials, work books, customized
class notes, personalized binders, school bags and everything else that is
required. The materials created a lot of excitement among the kids of all ages.
Several kids who had never spoken Telugu at home started making sincere efforts
to speak Telugu at home.
SiliconAndhra has formed Curriculum Development Team headed by
experienced teachers who has prior training in child psychology and teaching
methodologies in best schools in USA. SiliconAndhra also developed teacher training programs, teaching
kits and an Admin team to effectively support teachers, students and parents.
SiliconAndhra Mana Badi is hailed
by students and parents alike as this is the best ever Telugu learning
initiative that really made an excellent impact in a very short span of time.
This is the first of its
kind program with structured lesson plans, total professional approach and
proven teaching methodology of teaching Telugu as second language in a foreign
country. SiliconAndhra would like put all this experience and the
resources of its committed volunteers to full use and expand Mana Badi across all the states in USA. SiliconAndhra would like to start a Mana Badi class wherever ten students and a volunteer
teacher are available. Already, we have received interest to start classes in
several cities across USA.
We would like to work with
all the interested people hand in hand to spread Telugudanam all around. Let us
work together to make the Telugu language learning experience is an exciting
one for everyone involved.
Please contact for
more information:
Kishan
Rao: 408-368-2647 - kishanraov@gmail.com
Anand
Kuchibhotla: 408-718-0040 – anand@siliconandhra.org