I definitely agree that we need to be starting foreign languages earlier, and ideally providing students more opportunities to use their skills -- school trips, practical activities like magazine creation, non-English school events. My own MFL experience was appalling, I had no interest in learning French or Spanish but was interested in German; as such I acted up in lessons and fell behind rather quickly. But then, when I was actually given the chance to take German (and only German) I worked hard and studied, but from bad habits and several missed lessons I soon fell behind and failed that class; I feel like the school did not even try to equip me with the tools to work around problems like that... Indicative of my whole school experience really.