CHAPTER 7: PROGRAMME IMPLEMENTATION AND MANAGEMENT (Continued)
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7.3. Practicalities of programme implementation
Programme principles were applied to the learning situation in this study, largely through the in-house textbooks (cf. section 2.6.3), which embodied the syllabus for each year of study, and which were designed according to principles derived from the literature reviews (chapter 3). In order to demonstrate this application, and to explain how programme principles were realised in the classroom, representative sections from the main texts (TMM[1], NYT and TWA) will be examined here from three perspectives:

1.      Task-based syllabus-design (section 7.3.1).
2.      Learner autonomy (section 7.3.2).
3.      Promotion of positive affect and attitude change (section 7.3.3).

Further sections on implementation will then discuss student assessment (section 7.3.4) teacher-involvement (section 7.3.5), student-involvement (section 7.3.6), and programme feedback (section 7.3.7).

7.3.1 Task-based syllabus design
The reader is referred to table A-51 for responses to syllabus-design issues raised by Breen & Candlin (1980) (cf. section 6.3). These responses provide a background to the decisions made in this study in regard to syllabus design.

7.3.1.1 Task-selection
Since the textbooks were intended to provide a practical means of realising the syllabus, textbook design needed to be informed by task-based syllabus-design principles. In this respect, Candlin's (1987) task-selection research findings (section 3.4.4.2.3.2) provide useful criteria (cf. table A-33, for discussion of task-selection criteria):

1. one-way tasks should precede two-way tasks;
2. static tasks should precede dynamic tasks;
3. tasks in the present time should precede ones using the past or future;
4. easy tasks should precede difficult ones;
5. simple tasks (only one step) should precede complex tasks (many steps).

If we examine Chapter 1 of TMM and project 1 ("News") of TWA (cf. tables A-95/6,  below)[2] in the light of these criteria, we find a general progression within the chapters, from static to dynamic tasks, one-way to two-way, easy to difficult, and simple to complex. Definitions vary on these terms, and the tasks themselves can be interpreted in various ways (students are often encouraged to devise their own way of performing the tasks), so a number of items in these appendices have been marked with more than one characteristic for each classification. The general progression is, however, as per Candlin's suggestion. Terms such as "easy" and "difficult" are also relative, and different students have different perceptions of the difficulty level of activities. Because of this, students were expected to become involved in task-selection quite early in the programme, and to choose tasks that they found appropriate from the relevant chapter. In TWA this approach was extended to students being able to choose from i) an open "Project Schedule" (appendix C-22), in which they accessed and devised their own learning tasks, or ii) an "Alternative Schedule" (appendix C-23), in which sequenced tasks were provided. Table A-96, below) presents the Alternative Schedule for the first project in TWA.  

TABLE A-95: ACTIVITIES IN CHAPTER 1 OF "TELL ME MORE!"

TABLE A-96: ACTIVITIES IN PROJECT 1 OF "THE WAY AHEAD"

7.3.1.2 Syllabus goals
As mentioned in section 6.3.1, Willis (1996) and