Problem 1: Kids don’t often have the drive to learn a language
Problem 2: Adults have great trouble with the pronunciation of any second language.
One part of the solution: Teach kids the pronunciation of many languages
How many adults actually remember the language(s) that were forced upon them in elementary school? Of my friends, I would say very few. To learn a language, it must be studied continuously, frequently and with a genuine effort to learn. For this, bilingual studies work – my (future) kids will be lucky enough to be immersed in Mandarin and English as they will be sent to bilingual Mandarin-English school and my wife and I speak both Mandarin and English in the house. But what about those that only have the opportunity to study the language for a few classes a week?
While they might not have the motivation and perseverance to actually learn and retain a language, children can pick up the pronunciation of new languages almost effortlessly. I’ve taught ESL to both children and adults and the process of teaching pronunciation is quite different. With children, I can always (that’s 100% of the time) make the sound a few times and have them repeat it. With adults, it is a much more in-depth process. Adults often need to be told how to actually position their lips, tongue, etc. Then this needs to be reinforced over and over. In fact, this takes years for many adults. When does it become harder for people to learn pronunciation? I’m not sure but I learned the basics of Chinese pronunciation and pinyin when I was about 15 and that was early enough for me. I’m not a linguist but it seems clear to me that adults have great trouble coordinating their mouths in such a way that they can produce sounds that are new to them.
Looking back, rather than learning a language that I would forget, I would have rather learned the basic pronunciation of many languages. Kids could be taught the International Phonetic Alphabet and be taught words, phrases and songs in several languages. Just like kids don’t know what kind of job they will do in the future, they probably don’t know which language(s) they may need to learn either. Why not work on enhancing their ability to learn any language rather than teaching them one specific language?