One criterion of effectively teaching toward proficiency is the use of authentic texts. The traditional sources of authentic texts such as newspapers, magazines, radio broadcasts and television shows no longer are sufficient. There is an abundance of other sources in the real world that ought to be tapped to give students the opportunity to become functional in target-language situations. The role of authentic texts has also been reevaluated. It goes beyond the traditional belief that the reading of texts is solely a means of reinforcing a set of vocabulary and grammar, painstakingly edited and/or modified by the curriculum developer in order to fit a grammar-oriented lesson, because texts that have been edited are not authentic and thus are not representative samples of the kind of texts the foreign language student will eventually encounter in the country of the target language. The selection of authentic texts and their varying roles, however, need to be carefully determined on the basis of content and level of proficiency (i.e., level of difficulty). Since the content cannot always be matched exactly to the linguistic capabilities of any one foreign language learner, and since authentic texts often reflect several levels of proficiency, a careful selection of activities becomes a further criterion of paramount importance in teaching toward proficiency. During a recent series of workshops conducted by the author(s) in the Faculty and Staff Development Division (FS) at the Defense Language Institute (DLI) special focus was on the effective use of authentic texts, with particular emphasis placed on the proficiency level of the texts themselves as well as the task(s) and how to match the two. The purpose of the workshop was to assist approximately twenty instructors of German in their effort to implement a new DLI proficiencyoriented basic textbook along with Themen, the accompanying commercial textbook, and Authentische Texte im Deutschunterricht: Einfuhrung und Unterrichtsmodelle, a commercial support textbook. Of great value in the setting up of a resource center in the workshop, displaying a variety of authentic texts, and in the linking of these authentic texts to realistic activities were two DLI-FS handbooks and a chapter out of the German commercial support textbook. The DLI-FS handbooks are 1) Teaching for Proficiency, Interactive Listening and Reading: PSI 2a & 2b and 2) Interactive Video: I. Storyboards.' The chapter in the commercial support text is Authentizitdt im Fremdsprachenunterricht with Christoph Edelhoff's invaluable detailed list of text types and possible activities.2 Data pertinent to the workshops were merged from