In the last decade Brazil has begun to tackle the educational challenges of a developing country with a young population. The scale of such a demand is a result of the social and cultural inequalities that have historically been existent. Recent official policies and programs have addressed this gap by promoting greater opportunities for teacher education, and for the teaching of English as a foreign language. In this paper we discuss four of these programs/policies by highlighting their innovative aspects vis-à-vis traditional practices. We conclude that, despite quantitative advances, much still needs to be done to guarantee qualitative improvements in areas such as the curriculum in order to challenge the continuing influence of predominant ideologies.