The two bar charts illustrate the proportions of 14- to 16-year-old students in an English-speaking country who studied a foreign language in 1984 and 2007, as well as the three most commonly studied languages.
Overall, the percentage of students learning a foreign language declined over the period, with girls consistently showing higher participation than boys. Regarding specific languages, French remained the most popular choice despite a marked decrease, while Spanish became more widely studied by 2007.
In 1984, just under half of female students studied a foreign language, compared with approximately one third of males. By 2007, participation had fallen for both genders, with the figure for girls dropping to around 40%, while the proportion of boys decreased slightly to about 30%.
Turning to the languages studied, French clearly dominated in 1984 at roughly 50%, which was more than double the figures for German and Spanish. However, its popularity halved by 2007. German also experienced a decline, falling from about 20% to just over 10%. In contrast, Spanish showed an upward trend, increasing from around 5% in 1984 to approximately 15% in 2007.