International assessments indicate that Swedish students achieve high results in

reading, writing and understanding English. However, this does not mean that the

students display oral proficiency, despite an emphasis on functional and

communicative language skills in the current English Syllabus. While a previous

literature study by this researcher has shown that authentic texts are a way to

increase these skills, most of the results shown are from an international

viewpoint. Thus an empirical study was conducted within Sweden with the aim to

examine the use of authentic texts in the Swedish EFL upper elementary

classroom. Twelve teachers have answered a questionnaire on how they use

authentic texts in their language teaching, as well as their opinions about these as a

teaching tool. Additionally, 37 students have answered a questionnaire on their

attitudes about authentic texts. Results indicate that all of the teachers surveyed see

authentic texts as an effective way to increase students’ communicative

competence and English language skills; however, only a few use them with any

frequency in language teaching. Furthermore, this seems to affect the students’

attitudes, since many say that they read authentic texts in their free time, but prefer

to learn English out of a textbook at school. These findings are based on a small

area of Sweden. Therefore, further research is needed to learn if these opinions

hold true for the entire country or vary dependent upon region or other factors not

taken into consideration in this study.