Balancing authenticity and appropriateness in LSP

In teaching languages for specific purposes, 'authenticity' has always been an important goal. For many practitioners the use of authentic material from the "real" (i.e. non-teaching) world has continued to be of primary importance, either as a source for analysis or as actual input to classroom work. Their focus has tended to be on using authentic texts (either written or spoken), that is, "those which are designed for native speakers: they are real texts designed not for language students, but for the speakers of the language in question" (Harmer, 1983: 146)