Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Assorted gap fill exercises

Instant access to 100 gap fill exercises from the first year of the blog. These can be done in several different ways, and can even be edited.

Interactive formats (all also printable)

Note - Not every option will be suitable for every exercise
  • Multiple choice - showing up to 4 options for each question
  • Show the gapped words in a box at the top
  • Show the missing words as anagrams
  • Text entry - fill in the gaps without any clues
  • In line - shows the base word after the gap - good for transformations

Printable non-interactive formats

Note - These are only suitable when the base word and the answer are the same
  • Show first letter of missing words
  • Show a dash for each letter of the missing word
  • Combo - first letter and dashes
  • Show consonants only
  • Show vowels only

For teachers

  • The exercises are automatically loaded into the text editor (click on 'Show')
  • Here they can be edited for printing
  • Join two exercises together by copying them into the reserve box
  • Print two exercises on the same page using the 'Save' facility
  • The text editor can also be used as a gapfill exercise generator

Printing

  • Only the exercise will show
  • Print page 1 only

Index

Click on an exercise to select, or cycle through the exercises using the 'Next' and 'Prev' buttons.

Box Width: ? Clickable ? Tick ?
Number Questions ? Number gaps ?
Options: Repeats ? Lower case ?
 
Your exercise will appear here

Editing section and advanced features - Show

14 comments:

  1. I love your gap fill exercises. How do I implement them on my blog? I am an ESL instructor in Vancouver BC.

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  2. How do you add the check, show and clear boxes? See my post:
    http://englishinvancouver.blogspot.ca/2012/05/nine-ninety-nine-test.html

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks for the comment. Well you seem to have got two out of three. You found the HTML and the CSS, all you’re missing is the Javascript. I write all the script myself (apart from the toggle stuff below), and although pretty basic, I can make it do most things I want.

    You’re not the first to ask, so I’ll try and do a post soon with the all the code you need for a basic gapfill. Meanwhile you could try this website to get a basic Show/Hide function, so you could put the answers hidden below, and when students click on a ‘Show’ they magically appear. I use an adaption of this code for showing comments, for example.

    http://bloggerstop.net/2009/01/how-to-showhide-text-using-javascript.html

    As your current exercise is not clickable, I’d strip out the etc before each word in the top box, and the after them. And also the onclick='enterClickedWord("1",0)' etc in each of the questions. Because at the moment browsers won’t be able to find these JS functions, which might conceivably cause problems.

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  4. Blogger is not allowing me to say the JS word, and missed a bit out of that last paragraph - ie strip out the a href stuff for each word in the top box.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi Will,

    I have to say that I really like the text entry look of the exercise (of, for) on this page. It looks beautiful (CSS) and has great functionality (JS).

    I really want to make the same type of exercise for my students.

    I made the exercise on my blog (previously discussed) by using your gap-fill generator--then I did a view source on the code. When I look at view source for this page, there are 5000 lines. I don't know what code to use to get the buttons "Check", "Show" and "Clear" buttons. I would like to get the same functionality you have. I don't want multiple exercises. I just want to make one exercise at a time. I notice you have arrays for multiple exercises. Could you please tell me which lines of javascript and which lines of HTML I should look at to implement a similar exercise. That's probably a lot of work, but if you ever have the time, I would appreciate it. It is a bit difficult for me to figure out.
    I had a look at the page you suggested--it looks fine, but I like the buttons and the Check, Show and Clear functions much better.

    I am also very impressed by your large following. Good going, Will.

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  6. OK. It's done. I've published an Interactive Gapfill Code Generator which should have everything you need.

    Let me know how you get on.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hi, Susan. I've just had a look at your new post. The problem is the buttons, they've lost their JS code somehow. I copied your code from source and changed the button code and it works fine.

    Also, although the top words are clickable, the gaps aren't for some reason.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hi Will,

    Thanks so much for posting this new info. I've been working on it all morning, but I'm afraid, I have deleted that original post where I had buttons.

    My problem was getting the HTML code as well for the exercise... The CSS and JS are listed, but not the HTML... I'm working on it. I'll try again. What is the code for the buttons, BTW? I'll try and see if I can get back to where I was when you first saw the post.

    I really appreciate the time and effort you have put into making your post and I'm sure many other blogger teachers will be appreciative as well. I'll pass on the info at the college where I work. There are a fair number of bloggers.

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  9. The HTML code is in the boxes. OK I think I know what the problem is. I didn't check it in Internet Explorer. It enters the code into the boxes in Firefox and Chrome, but not Internet Explorer for some reason. If you've got another browser try that. Otherwise you need to add this code to the buttons:
    Check - onclick="checkAnsBoxAnswers(1)"
    Show -
    onclick="showAnsBoxAnswers(1)"
    Clear -
    onclick="clearAnsBoxAnswers(1)"

    You could do it between 'value' and 'type'. Just make sure there's a space between it and the other code.

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  10. Hi Will,

    Thanks so much for the info. I will keep working on this and let you know how it goes. Thanks again for your help.

    Susan

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  11. Sorry, I made a stupid mistake. It should work OK on IE now, and show you all the HTML code.

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  12. @Susan - Had another look at yours - looking good, and clickable is working, but the buttons are still missing their JS code.

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  13. BINGO! Thank's so much for your help. My students are really going to love this!!!

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  14. Bingo indeed. Everything seems hunky-dory now. Thanks for your help, I wouldn't have spotted my stupid mistake otherwise. Now I can go to bed happy.

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