Coincidental changes in the perceived nature of Australian society and in the linguistic sciences are creating urgent needs for the re-education of Australian language teachers. Recognition of the pluralism of Australian society has highlighted the inappropriateness of the languages, objectives, and methods of traditional language teaching. Similarly, rapid changes in insights into the nature of language and of language learning are leaving the approaches common in the schools outdated and largely ineffectual. A recent study has shown, in fact, that this inefficiency and its concomitant low exit-point proficiency levels are the major cause of the recent decline in student numbers. These factors make the need for the continual re-education of language teachers of increasing urgency in order to provide teachers with facility in more appropriate languages, to enhance teacher proficiency in the existing languages, to update teachers' cultural understanding, and, from a rational understanding of the nature of language and of how it is learned, to increase teachers' methodological effectiveness. (Author)