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as being optional, which allows the student a degree of flexibility and autonomy.A number of the authors considered this in the design of their blends, for example,Ingham (Chapter 15) states, ‘The face-to-face aspects of the course were compulsory…. In contrast, contributing to wiki was optional as it was experimental.’ Hirst andGodfrey (Chapter 9) also incorporated optional tasks into their blend to ‘[promote]participant interaction and self-responsibility’.However, difficulties were encountered in a couple of designs from either makingthe modes compulsory or optional. Bilgin (Chapter 19) found that ‘the compulsoryuse of the online program was one of the reasons for student discontent’. Whilst theoptional component of using web-based resources in Fleet’s (Chapter 18) blend failedbecause ‘… students regarded the online material as a course extension rather thanan integral part. This expectation may be a fundamental reason why collective onlineinteraction was not extensive. Although there had been logical reasons for makingparticipation voluntary, had online interaction been compulsory, greater participationwould have undoubtedly occurred’.How will the modes complement each other?One of the reasons that students leave blended learning courses accordingto Stracke (2007a: 57) is due to ‘a perceived lack of support and connection/complementarity between the f2f and computer-assisted components of the“blend”….’ This is also one of Sharma and Barrett’s guiding principles for blendedlearning course design: ‘use technology to complement and enhance F2F teaching’(2007: 13–14). In the blend I redesigned this was one of my guiding principles and toachieve it we linked the content of the three modes to a relatively high degree eitherby grammar, vocabulary or topic. For example, the REWARD (Greenall, 2002) softwarethat was used 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. This complementarity aspectwas also widely referred to in the case studies, with Fleet (Chapter 18) stating ‘Thereshould therefore be a definite topic and skills link between class-based and onlinework, which learners need to be made aware of.’What methodology will the blend employ?According to Levy, cited in Neumeier (2005: 172), CALL methodology is‘predominantly expressed through the design of the computer programme’ andthis can result in it being somewhat limited and repetitive. In the face-to-face mode,however, it is the teacher who determines the methodology and the choices opento them are far greater. The methodology of each of the modes should therefore beconsidered, with variety being the aim when designing a blended learning course soas to appeal to as many learning styles as possible. Reference is made in the casestudies to a wide range of learning theories (such as behaviourism, connectivism andconstructivism), and language teaching approaches and methods (see Table 7).Conclusion | 233