Swedes’ proficiency in English is often high up in the world rankings among the countries in which English is an L2[1]. Learners of English are routinely tested in the Swedish school system, using standardized national tests to measure how well students are doing nationwide, whilst also providing teachers with sometimes essential assistance in grading students’ language skills. At the end of year 9, students should have developed “all-round communicative skills”. But how do we determine what having “all-round communicative skills” constitutes? What are learners’ attitudes towards and perception of what they learn, how they learn it and their own present ability? What are some areas in which they believe they can improve the most, and is there a preferred way to learn a specific skill? Is communicative competence even focused on in the classroom, and if it is – how and how often? The purpose of this study is threefold: to identify how communicatively competent students in year 9 consider themselves in comparison to their peers; how much they believe that they work with communicative competence in school; and what they perceive to be their weakness and area of communicative competence that could be improved most. Secondarily, are there any differences in what is believed to be focused on in class between students and teachers? To answer these questions, an overview of the aspects that together constitutes being communicatively competent based on relevant previous research will be provided. The aims of English as a school subject in Swedish schools are studied in order to see what the goals are, according to the curriculum. After collecting data using interviews and a questionnaire, results indicate that students are not always aware of when and how classroom activities are designed to improve communicative competence. Students in general also seemingly have a varying opinion on what areas they have the most potential for improvement in. There is thus a disparity between learners’ expectations and perception of their own needs, and teachers’ opinions of what requires improvement and how learning of communicative skills is best done. [1] In the writing process, a decision was made to call English an L2 and not a FL throughout the study, since they are still trying to learn another language than their L1 in either case (Yule, 2014, p. 187).

The aim of this study is to investigate teachers’ opinions and experiences using analogue coursebooks in lower secondary school English teaching. The study was conducted using written interviews, interviewing 7 currently active teachers teaching English in the Swedish school system, with the participants’ answers being the material. Thematic Analysis was a method used to structure the results, and Sociocultural Theory was the theoretical perspective. The themes that were identified were: analogue coursebooks; digital coursebooks; more or less suitable activities for coursebook usage; the future of coursebook usage; and desirable qualities of a coursebook. The results of the study reveal that the participants have a positive outlook on using analogue coursebooks in the English classroom as a way of maintaining a certain level of difficulty and quality in the teaching, whilst also having something to fall back on as a source with varied content that can be used. There were no noticeable differences in the teachers’ opinion of what they could be used for but the extent to which they used them varied depending on their experience in the profession. Finally, the cost of coursebooks was mentioned as a key aspect in the process of selecting coursebooks, together with user-friendliness and flexibility.