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the management of the centres would be handed over to the AFBiH). Secondly, it didnot require an internet connection which was not available at the time the blend wasdeveloped in the centres. Moreover, REWARD (Greenall, 2002) was readily availablein Bosnia and Herzegovina; it could be linked relatively easily to the coursebooks;the content was attractively presented; it appeared straightforward to use in designterms for the students; and because there was little else on the market that suitedour needs if we were to address sustainability.Self-study was comprised of eight ‘strands’ (my terminology) that were rotated acrossa two-week period with Fridays being left as ‘free-choice’ for the learners. The eightstrands at pre-intermediate level are outlined in Table 1. The rationale for employingdifferent strands was to provide the learners with a range of task types to appealto a variety of learning styles and to maintain as far as possible their motivation.The materials for these strands were developed from published English LanguageTeaching (ELT) resources and coursebooks, or downloaded from ELT websites, andworksheets were created or the book itself used.Table 1: Self-study strands at pre-intermediatePre-intermediate self-studyStrands Weeks 1, 3, 5, 7,9 and 11VocabularyMondayListening audio packs TuesdayCampaign 1 workbook WednesdayGrammarThursdayFree choiceFridayStrands Weeks 2, 4, 6, 8,10 and 12VideoMondayTask workTuesdayVocabulary wordlists WednesdayReadingThursdayFree choiceFridayComplementarityThe content of the three modes was linked to a relatively high degree either bygrammar, vocabulary or topic. For example REWARD (Greenall, 2002), which wasused in the computer mode, was grammatically linked to the general Englishcoursebooks Headway (Soars and Soars, 2006) and Going for Gold (Acklam andCrace, 2003) that were used in the face-to-face mode. Such ‘complementarity’between modes has been identified as an important factor in blended learningcourse design and we felt it to be a guiding principle in our design too. This seemsto be supported by the findings from a study into student retention conducted byStracke (2007: 57). The results indicated that one of the three main reasons thatlearners left the blended learning course they were attending was ‘a perceived lackof support and connection/complementarity between the face-to-face and computerassistedcomponents of the “blend”’.Timetabling/sequencing the modesDuring the design process a great deal of consideration was given to thearrangement of the timetable in terms of how to sequence the modes, the optimalamount of time to spend on the modes, and the optimal number of modes to178 | A military blend