The diagrams illustrate the results of a survey by teachers of foreign languages about the reasons students decide to learn a new language in Britain. While the first pie chart demonstrates the key reasons students choose studying a foreign language, the remaining chart gives information about the numbers the teacher felt that there has currently been a shift in the causes.
Overall, while travel was recorded as the highest figure in total of purposes students learning foreign languages, the opposite was true for the general interest. In addition, teachers believed that the greatest recent increase was relevant with buying property abroad, whereas travel accounted for the smallest percentage.
Regarding the first pie chart, as a result, students learning a second language for travel purposes accounted for 33%, making it the leading motivation. Business was the second popular reason at 26%, while 19% mentioned buying property overseas. The remaining categories witness much smaller proportions, including personal development and social contacts ( both 7%) , foreign partners (5%) and general interest (3%)
Regarding recent increases, 34% of teachers reported a rise in the youngs learning a foreign language to buy property overseas, marking this the fastest growing reason. Business purpose followed it with 19% while the figure of social contacts reached 15%. Noticeably, 15% of teachers claimed that there was no change in reasons for learning foreign language. By contrast, only 3% of teachers believe that learning a language for travel has increased. Similarly, personal development and foreign partners each accounted for 4%, while general interest stood at 6%.