Saturday, April 23, 2011

Education Research Report: Languages Studied by K–12 Public School Students

Education Research Report: Languages Studied by K–12 Public School Students

Languages Studied by K–12 Public School Students

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Complete report summary


2004–05 Foreign Language Enrollments by Language.
Language FL Enrollment Percent CI Percent of FL Enrollment
SPANISH 6,295,512 +/- 1.33% 72.87%
FRENCH 1,296,249 +/- 2.35% 15.00%
GERMAN 365,040 +/- 2.65% 4.23%
OTHER 362,462 +/- 1.15% 4.20%
LATIN 225,372 +/- 2.61% 2.61%
JAPANESE 61,981 +/- 2.84% 0.72%
CHINESE 20,292 +/- 3.57% 0.23%
RUSSIAN 12,082 +/- 4.25% 0.14%
TOT AL 8,638,990 +/- 1.04%

2007–08 Foreign Language Enrollments by Language.
Language FL Enrollment Percent CI Percent of FL Enrollment
SPANISH 6,418,331 +/- 1.75% 72.06%
FRENCH 1,254,243 +/- 2.93% 14.08%
OTHER 489,356 +/- 0.68% 5.49%
GERMAN 395,019 +/- 1.81% 4.43%
LATIN 205,158 +/- 1.67% 2.30%
JAPANESE 72,845 +/- 1.37% 0.82%
CHINESE 59,860 +/- 2.13% 0.67%
RUSSIAN 12,389 +/- 2.96% 0.14%
TOT AL 8,907,201 +/- 1.33%
FL=foreign language; CI=confidence interval
This ranking of the most commonly studied languages remained consistent,. Chinese had the largest percentage growth, increasing by 195%. Despite this large growth, Chinese remained the seventh most studied language. Japanese, German, Russian, and Spanish also increaseIn contrast to these increases, French and Latin enrollments declined by 3% and 9%, respectively.