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146 CHAPTER 7served, “any set of task-based materials runs the risk of demoralizing as wellas enhancing the self-confidence of learners, in that it is impossible for taskdesigners to gauge accurately in advance the thresholds of competence ofdifferent learners” (p. 18). In this context, Prabhu (1987, pp. 87–88) hassuggested five “rough measures” of task complexity. According to him, weshould take into account: (a) The amount of information needed for thelearner to handle a task; (b) the “distance” between the information providedand information to be arrived at as task outcome; (c) the degree ofprecision called for in solving a task; (d) the learner’s familiarity with purposesand constraints involved in the tasks; and (e) the degree of abstractnessembedded in the task. Even these “rough measures” require, as Widdowson(1990) pointed out, reliable information about “cognitivedevelopment at different stages of maturation, about the conditions, psychologicaland social, which attend the emergence in the mind of generalproblem-solving capabilities” (pp. 147–148). Clearly, in terms of the currentstate of our knowledge, we are not there yet.Anticipating some of the criticisms about sequencing, learning-centeredpedagogists argue that a lack of informed and clear criteria for sequencinglinguistic input through communicative tasks need not be a hindrance.Sequencing becomes crucial only in language- and learner-centered pedagogies,which are predominantly content-driven. In a predominantly activity-drivenpedagogy, the question of sequencing is only of peripheral interestbecause what is of paramount importance are classroom proceduresrather than language specifications. What the teacher does in the classroomto provide reasonably challenging, comprehensible, meaningfocusedinput is more important than what the syllabus or the textbook dictates.Consequently, the right place where decisions concerning sequencingshould be made is the classroom, and the right person to make thosedecisions is the practicing teacher.7.2. CLASSROOM PROCEDURESHow do the theoretical principles of learning-centered pedagogy get translatedinto classroom procedures? In the following section, I deal with thisquestion under two broad headings: input modifications and interactionalactivities.7.2.1. Input ModificationsThe primary objective of learning-centered pedagogy in terms of classroomprocedures is the creation of optimum learning conditions through inputmodifications with the view to encouraging learners to have intense contact