A reluctance to learn foreign languages is leaving the UK facing a crisis and at risk of being cut off from the rest of the world, a leading head teacher has warned.
Dr Anthony Seldon suggested that "Great Britain is rapidly becoming little Britain" and should not rely on other countries to learn English to make up for our lack of language skills.
His comments come just days after Education Secretary Michael Gove attacked the "perverse pride" taken in not knowing a foreign tongue and said that other languages should be taught from the age of five.
In a speech to a conference of language specialists organised by the Schools Network, Dr Seldon, master of private Wellington College, says: "We are facing a crisis in modern languages. As a nation we risk becoming deeply insular and cut off from abroad. In the run-up to the Olympics, and despite being more multi-cultural than ever in our history, Great Britain is rapidly becoming little Britain.
"Our record in language learning is uniquely bad in the developed world. We cannot simply assume the rest of the world will learn English to accommodate us. This is a problem for society as much as an issue simply for schools. The perception in schools is that modern languages are hard and it is more difficult to gain good grades at them than in other subjects. We need to change this urgently.
"We cannot lose the plot at a time when other countries are expanding their language teaching. We desperately need to shift that culture and dramatically expand the teaching of languages which are increasingly important for our future, such as Mandarin, Arabic and Urdu which are studied by far too few of our young people."
Figures from this summer's GCSE results show that modern foreign languages are continuing to see a massive decline in entries. French is showing the largest overall decrease, with entries down 13.2% from last year and down 28.8% over the past five years while German is also down by 13.2% from last year, and entries for Spanish have fallen by 2.5% from 2010.
Speaking at the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference annual meeting in St Andrews, Dr John Newton, headmaster of Taunton School, a private boarding school, agreed that pupils should start learning languages early. He said: "When I was growing up English was the main language. Now it's Mandarin."
South American countries such as Mexico and Chile have rapidly growing economies, Dr Newton said, adding that youngsters need to know how to communicate within the changing global economy. "Our children are growing up with the notion that Britannia rules the waves. What a mistake," he said.
In an interview with The Guardian newspaper at the weekend, Mr Gove said some schools in deprived areas are teaching languages to five year olds and so it should be possible nationwide.