Learning Mandarin as a foreign language

I notice that kids tend to speak Mandarin with an 'ang moh accent'. One of my friends said the 'ang moh accent' had come naturally to her kids.

I think it's probably due (i) having learnt English before and/or more than Mandarin, and (ii) mixing with and learning from schoolmates/friends/family who also speak Mandarin with an 'ang moh accent'. 

To these kids, Mandarin is a foreign language.

This phenomenon takes place in the adult world of (foreign) language-learning too. In my Korean class, we sort of figured that, at the end of the day, it's very possible that only people from our class would understand the weird Korean which we speak. Native Korean speakers are unlikely to be able to decipher what we are saying because of our weird accents and customised sentence structures. 

Through my Korean class, I've also come to appreciate that language is not something one can rote-learn on his own. 

Someone on TV, an child educator, recently commented that it's wishful thinking on the part of parents to send their kids for an hour or two of Mandarin lessons each week, and expect the kids to therefore be able speak and write in Mandarin confidently.

If you ask parents in such shoes, they will claim in defence, guilt, frustration and futility that 2 hours is better than none. Or that since you have no children of your own, you shouldn't be commenting on how they are bringing up theirs.

Emotions aside... Honestly, the solution is in fact very simple. However, because it is very tedious, the solution is unlikely gonna be popular. 

Regardless, here's solution anyway, i.e. for the parents to learn Mandarin TOGETHER with the kids.

Why should the kids be going on this tedious learning journey alone, while their parents wait for them in the cafe at the ground floor of the shopping centre?

Learn it together. Use it together. 

Create a Mandarin-speaking environment for your kids at home.

I think it'll be fun and will draw the family closer as a unit.