The bar diagrams illustrate the number of students, in percentage, aged from 14 to 16 years old learning a foreign language in an English speaking nation, as well as the top 3 most chosen languages by students namely French, German, and Spanish in 1984 and 2007.
Overall, there was a decline in the percentage of students who chose to learn a non-native language over the surveyed periods, and girls accounted for most of those who learned new languages in those 2 years. Among three mentioned languages, French and German experienced a drop in the number of learners, while the reverse was true for Spanish. Interestingly, most students chose French as their desired language to study for.
Regarding the first chart, a downfall was seen among male students as the percentage dipped from 30% in 1984 to around 25% in 2007. Similarly, around 48% of female schoolers chose to study a new language; this figure then observed an 8% fall to 40% by 2007. Despite this, female scholars still predominated the data in both 1984 and 2007.
Concerning the second chart, French was the choice for half of those who decided to learn a non-native language. However, this figure then plummeted significantly to only around 25% in 2007. The similar trend also occurred in German with the amount of individuals choosing this decreased by 6% from 20% in 1984 to only 14% in 2007. In contrast, Spanish surged tremendously to 10% in 2007 from the least noticeable starting point of only 3% in 1984.