One striking example is that thirty-seven local authority areas, including some of the poorest (North Tyneside, Knowsley, Wigan, Rochdale) now enter fewer pupils for foreign language exams than the elite Eton College.
I did French and German to "A" Level in the late 80's, but never felt really confident about speaking them in a real life situation until the last decade or so, when I started going to Germany and the French-speaking part of Belgium on beer trips, and was pleasantly surprised how much came back within a few hours of my being there.
Apparently foreign languages, especially French and German, are seen as too hard, both by students choosing which subjects to study to GCSE and their teachers. A big part of that is exam results counting towards a school's position in the league tables, and hence their funding. And of course, once people stop studying foreign languages at school it has a knock-on effect on both the number of undergraduates studying them at university and those qualified to teach them.
I was also one of the last half dozen people to take "O" Level Latin at a state school in Stockport, although sadly I don't get much chance to use it now.
