This paper reports on an innovative five-day training program for foreign language teaching assistants (TAs) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW). The program developed out of a perceived need to train graduate students better for the teaching profession and to develop colleague support. In the UW program, the French and Italian, German, and Spanish and Portuguese departments joined forces to offer a preregistration orientation workshop to incoming TAs. The five-day session was designed to provide classroom "survival skills" for teaching the courses immediately assigned them, sensitize TAs to the common fears and frustrations of beginning foreign language learners, begin to instill professional attitudes and attributes to be developed in later TA formal training, provide a forum for exchange on methods and techniques of the various departments, and allow TAs to concentrate solely on acquisition of teaching skills without the pressures and distractions of registration week. Evaluation of the early workshops found them to be useful in increasing TAs' pedagogical skills and knowledge. More recent programs have been somewhat reduced in scope and have been returned to registration week for reasons of funding, but the interdepartmental effort continues to offer a more balanced introduction to being a TA than previously. The appendices provide workshop materials: an agenda; a workshop evaluation form; and an introductory survey form for participants. (MSE)