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From https://theconversation.com/whats-the-best-way-to-teach-children-a-second-language-new-research-produces-surprising-results-122059

What’s the best way to teach children a second language? New research produces surprising results
by Karen Roehr-Brackin and Angel Tellier
August 22, 2019

Research has shown that children are highly successful learners if they have a lot of exposure to a new language over a long time, such as in the case of child immigrants who are surrounded by the new language all day, every day. In such a scenario, children become much more proficient in the new language over the long term than adults.

But if the amount of language children are exposed to is limited, as in classroom language learning, children are slow learners and overall less successful than teenagers or adults. How can we explain this apparent contrast?

Researchers have argued that children learn implicitly, that is, without conscious thought, reflection or effort. And implicit learning requires a large amount of language input over a long period of time.

As we get older, we develop the ability to learn explicitly – that is, analytically and with deliberate effort. Put differently, adults approach the learning task like scientists. This explains why more mature classroom learners have greater success: they can draw on more highly developed, efficient, explicit learning processes which also require more effort.

...In our new study, we asked whether younger children who are generally thought to learn implicitly had already developed some ability to learn explicitly as well. What’s more, we looked at whether the ability to analyze language can predict foreign language learning success in the classroom.

Read the full article at https://theconversation.com/whats-the-best-way-to-teach-children-a-second-language-new-research-produces-surprising-results-122059