As concerns about educational planning mount, the perspectives of the foreign language teaching profession will come face to face with national policy agendas, and there may be conflict. The profession must be aware of perspectives other than its own at the same time that it sets and maintains its own goals. Public debate has arisen about the state of foreign languages and international studies and their role in national policy. The profession will have difficulty in pursuing the idea that foreign language study should be boosted largely for national defense purposes; it ignores other important foreign language curriculum issues and objectives. A more defensible viewpoint is that adult language competencies are a pressing national goal. This approach requires a unified and concerted effort on the profession's part to systematically study and disseminate effective teaching practice to promote foreign language proficiency. (MSE)