The first chart illustrates how many students aged 14 to 16 learned a foreign language in a particular English-speaking country, while the other highlights three popular foreign languages studied by the students across a 23-year period, from 1984 to 2007.
Overall, what stands up from the chart is that the male group dominated the female one in the number of students who studied foreign languages during the period. Another important point is that French was the most popular foreign language among the students both in 1984 and 2007. Conversely, Spanish showed the lowest prevalence across the years.
Looking at the details, in 1984, nearly half of the male students learned other languages. On the other hand, the percentage of female students who studied foreign languages was only 30%. Focusing on 2007, the proportion of male students fell significantly to 40 %. Similary, the rate of female students decreased slightly, from 30% in 1984 to just about 25% in 2007.
Regarding the top three languages, French recorded the highest percentage in 1984, at 50%. However, the proportion went down dramatically to just about 35% in 2007. Germany came to rank two, 20% in 1984, before going up slightly to approximately 24% in 2007. By contrast, Spanish displayed the lowest percentage, just under one tenth of students in 2007, after which it rose negligibly to one tenth in 2007.