“She was not communicating to them in English at all, yet they were completely engaged and no one asked when the class would end, even though it went well above an hour.”Īlthough Tadanki had never taught Telugu before, she had experience with language instruction. “Within five minutes of that class starting, the kids were giggling, laughing, pretending to be an elephant,” said Sravani Jandhyala, an Irvine resident whose children, then 4 and 6, were students in Tadanki’s first class. Tadanki’s first public class had seven students - her son and some of his friends - and was held in an extra room in the family house. Orange County’s Telugu population is the fourth- or fifth-largest in the country, he said, and it has been growing for the last decade. of Southern California, about 5,000 Telugu families live between Los Angeles and San Diego, with Orange County being the biggest hub in the region. It was only after Tadanki moved to Irvine that someone suggested she formalize and expand her lessons to include other children in the community.Īccording to Bayapa Dadem, president of the Telugu Assn. “When my kids go back to Andhra Pradesh,” she said of the southeastern state where she grew up, “they shouldn’t feel like a fish out of water.” Not only was it a way for them to learn about their heritage, but it was also practical, because the family continued to visit India regularly.

She had been teaching the language to her own children for years, when they lived in New Jersey and San Jose. Tadanki started Telugu Thota - which means Telugu Garden - in 2003, a year after she and her family moved to Irvine.

Telugu songs with la