While Spanish remains the most commonly studied foreign language, the percentage of faculty jobs in Spanish declined from a high of 50.3 percent in 2000 to 35.5 percent in 2009, according to the report. That shift made way for an increase over the same period in positions in other languages, such as Chinese (from 1.4 to 9.5 percent) and Arabic (0.5 to 3 percent).

