The proportions of 14-16 years-old students learning a modern language in an English-speaking nation and the three most popular foreign languages are illustrated in the bar charts.
Overall, it can be seen that the proportion of both girls and boys learning foreign languages decreased, albeit in varying degrees, with the former showing the biggest change. As for the second chart, French and German saw a downward trend in the proportion of students studying them, whereas the reverse was true for Spanish. Notably, even though the percentage of students learning French dropped substantially, it still remained as the most popular language in both given years.
Regarding the first chart, a decrease of about 9% was seen in the proportion of girls studying foreign languages between 1984 and 2007. The proportion of boys learning foreign languages began with roughly 30%, and then dropped to about 25% in the second year.
French and German were the categories witnessing a decreasing trend in the proportion of students studying them, starting at 50 and 20 percentage points, and ending at about 22% and 15%, respectively. Spanish, in contrast, was the only language with an increase in the percentage of students studying it, starting at about 2% and finishing at 10%.