ABSTRACT
The operations of any teaching and/or learning system involve a number of different tasks and roles which have to be shared out between the different components which make up the system. In systems based on a traditional structure (teacher and group) it is the teacher who performs the majority of the tasks and who takes on most of the roles: he is, therefore, the main component in the teaching/learning situation. However, recent research into applied linguistics, into the psychology of learning and into psycholinguistics has underlined the importance of the learning process as such, serving as a useful reminder of the fact that it is really the learner who is the essential component in any pedagogical event. If we accept, therefore, that we should now try a more learner-centred approach, what happens as regards the distribution of the various tasks and roles?
