Lakshmi has a Bachelor’s Degree in Electronics and Communications from the University of Madras. She worked as a lecturer in India before moving to the US.
Lakshmi has participated in Debates and Thirukkural recitation competitions during her school days. She is a voracious reader and eventually hopes to get a degree in Tamil Literature.
Lakshmi’s abiding interest in Tamil motivated her to take up teaching Tamil at the Lakshmi Tamil School. She is enjoying every minute of it.
Santhoshimaa has a Master’s degree in Commerce from Pondicherry University, India. An avid reader of English and Tamil books, she is particularly interested in Tamil epics and masterpieces.
She has organized many cultural programs. She has great histrionic talents and has had convincing roles in sketches and full length plays. She also has won laurels in recitation competitions in school and in college.
She was teaching Tamil to children for a while in Schaumburg, IL, before she moved to Atlanta. She has been handling beginner classes in our school since August 2014. As a native Tamil speaker, she intends to impart knowledge to students. She is an enthusiastic teacher who loves to interact with small kids.
Sankari holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from Annamalai University, Chidambaram, India. She has been teaching at Lakshmi Tamil Learning Center from 2012.
She has a great passion for Tamil since her school days. She is a voracious reader of Tamil books, especially the epics and devotional literature.
When she was a student, she took part in a fancy dress competition as Kannagi, the heroine of the immortal classic Silappathikaram. This motivated her to stage a drama based on the epic during the Annual Day Function in 2014 which was highly lauded by the audience.
Sankari keeps her classes very interactive. She is delighted to see kids learn the alphabets and eventually start to read and write.
Akila is an Electronics Engineering graduate of BMS College, Bangalore. She also has diplomas in Computer Science and Accounting from Gwinnett Tech. GA. She has been working in Margaret Winn Holt Elementary School since 2005, her current position being the Registrar.
Akila derived interest in Tamil from her father, Dr. B. S. Mani, who has been successfully running the Tamil daily Dinasudar in Bangalore for over 50 years. She studied Tamil on her own even when the college did not offer Tamil classes. Her notable achievement was that she was placed first in the exam conducted by the Bangalore Tamil Sangam.
Akila has been supporting Lakshmi Tamil School in various ways since 1999. She is currently teaching beginner classes in the school. She helps in planning and coordinating the Annual Day celebrations every year.
Hema has an M.Phil. degree in Chemistry from Pachaiyappa’s College, University of Madras, India. She started her career as a lecturer in Ethiraj College, Chennai, teaching chemistry for undergraduate students. She has worked in a preschool after moving to the United States and is currently working as Kindergarten Instructional Assistant at Brookwood Elementary at Cumming, Georgia. She is also tutoring students in various subjects including college level chemistry, Math, and kids who needs help understanding certain subjects.
A native speaker of Tamil, Hema has been teaching in our school since 2008. She is currently teaching 7th grade and 6th grade. Her students have been graduated from Lakshmi Tamil School with high proficiency in speaking and writing Tamil, and she is very proud of them.
She uses technology like PowerPoint presentations for her classes. She believes that teacher-student interaction and teacher-parent communication are very important for the student’s success. She understands the strengths and challenges of students and guides them accordingly.
Hema has proved to be a great organizer for our school programs. She introduced “Poster Display” during an Annual Day a few years ago to give the students an opportunity to exhibit their talents. This had a tremendous impact on the students’ thinking and learning skills. Since then, this has become a key event in our Annual Day celebrations. Also, her “Word Game” for the parents and teachers conducted with the help of a parent turned into a memorable show.
Lakshmi has a master’s degree in English literature from Ethiraj College, University of Madras, India. She has an abiding flair for languages in general and for Tamil, her mother tongue, in particular. A voracious reader, Lakshmi has also done courses in computer networking after she migrated to Atlanta .
With determination and will, Lakshmi had conducted classes singlehandedly for more than 15 years to aspiring students. During the initial period, she made extensive research about the methodologies of teaching that would make students learn with ease and formulated her own style for beginner classes. Her approach is based on teaching a group of letters and using them at once to learn words.
In a similar way, Lakshmi has spent many months looking into several books that resulted in standardizing the syllabi for various grades. She has introduced many innovative concepts such as application knowledge testing, listening comprehension, and speech/essay topics illustrating the historical culture as well as current affairs.
An outstanding achievement of Lakshmi was that she taught Tamil to a group of Emory University students who won scholarships to go to India for their research project
Raji is an electronics engineering graduate from MIT, Anna University, India, and is currently working as a software professional in Atlanta. A native Tamil speaker, she has an aptitude for the language and teaching. Even as a school student, she had many times volunteered tutoring other students from various backgrounds.
Raji has been serving the school in various capacities since 2003. Her noteworthy and innovative contribution to the academics has been the compilation of teaching materials for the beginner class. These resources include many workbooks and numerous PowerPoint presentations to improve students’ vocabulary and cognition.
Raji has also been involved in a host of administrative duties assisting the principal in a variety of tasks such as class scheduling, student enrollment, teacher selection, and book procurement from various sources. She loves organizing programs and is largely responsible for planning and overseeing school events like annual days and competitions.