The defenders of teaching foreign languages have these justifications for their teaching.
- for travel
- for business
- to live abroad
There are no doubt cases where this applies. The person who moves to France to live will find things easier if they study GCSE French. The person who has business meetings with a German company will find it somewhat useful. The person going on holiday to Barcelona will find some of the Spanish useful.
But this only works if you are fortunate to get that match. If you learned French at school and have to meet with a German company, it is of little use. If you prefer to holiday in Spain, or move to Italy, the same applies.
And when we teach languages it is as a level beyond what is required for holiday, yet insufficient for serious business work like writing detailed contracts. When we need that work, we pay for translators which is specialist rather than general. In addition to this, English is now the 2nd language of everyone. Business globally operates in business more than other languages.
We believe that general travel communication should be taught for a number of major languages: Spanish, German, French. The language that is useful to get by when visiting a country: airports, trains, numbers, basic language structures.
Beyond this, learn how to use translation software or phrasebooks. We could teach children what every vegetable is in French, but most of it will be wasted, while understanding how to look up poivre is useful.
We should also explore cultural differences. Food culture in France, cycling in the Netherlands etc.