Modern languages teaching is in crisis in large parts of England, with the study of French, German and Spanish on the verge of dying out in many areas.
More than two in three children are leaving schools in some counties without a foreign language GCSE. In towns and cities across the North such as Blackpool, Hull, Barnsley and Gateshead only a handful of pupils are achieving the grades that they need to study languages at A level and beyond.
The collapse of language courses is in danger of becoming endemic for a great number of English schoolchildren, according to data obtained by The Times.
The situation is worst in the North East, where only 15.8 per cent of language GCSEs awarded last year were