The given bar charts illustrate the percentage of students who studying a forein language from the age 14 to 16 between 1984 and 2007, while also show the three most common languages during the same period.
Overall, it is obvious that there was a decline in the proportion of student’s gender learning a second language, while girls remained the highest percentage over the period of 23 years. Also, although French was the most popular choice, it continued to decline gradually while spanish slightly increased.
In 1984, female students tended to learn foreign languages more often than male, about nearly 50% and exactly 30% respectively. After the following 23 years, the proportion of students who studying a foreign language witness a downward trend, girls about 40% and boys at over 20%.
Regarding to particular languages, French was the most common second languge in both years. In 1984, it accounted for 50% of students. However, this figures fell significantly to just under 30% in 2007. Following by German and Spanish while German decreased as French but less dramatically from 20% to over 10%. Conversely, the percentage of Spanish slightly increased in 2007, about 10%.