State pupils shunning foreign language studies

Oxford University is facing a "crisis'' in its foreign language departments because of the decline in school leavers' linguistic skills, a conference to mark European Day of Languages was told yesterday.

Sixth-formers are shunning modern language A-levels, which they see as "difficult'' in favour of "easy'' courses such as psychology and media studies, Oxford academics warned.

Pupils from independent schools now take an increasing proportion of Oxford's language places because German, Russian and Italian classes have been dropped by state schools. Applications to Oxford's language faculty have fallen by a third in the past decade and many successful applicants struggle to cope.

Gillian Shephard, a former secretary of state for education, said the lack of formal grammar teaching in state school language lessons and the lack of time for languages in the national curriculum were to blame. Ms Shephard, who heads the Oxford Modern Language Forum, said: "To study a language at university you need to have the building blocks put in place at school – and that does need a fair amount of slog."