Ah, the gap-fill exercise. It really is the staple of language exercises for language learners. And it’s much maligned perhaps because of how popular it is. You can use gap-fill exercises for almost any grammar or vocabulary point. While it is a very traditional exercise, there are some variations you can do with it. Here are six kinds of gap-fill you can use the next time you are making an exercise like this for your students.
I should mention that the ideas below come from a book that I wrote with John Hughes called ETPedia Materials Writing. In that book we included 500 (yes, five hundred) ideas for writing materials, all in the form of lists.
1 The basic gap-fill
This is the basic, bog-standard, gap-fill. Simply take out a word which the students have to write in. Sounds simple, right? Well, as long as there can only be one word that goes in the gap. So for a sentence like ‘I live in England’ you could gap ‘in’ but not any of the other words unless you accept multiple answers.
2 Give the first letter
Slightly more simple, in this exercise you take out a word, but provide the first letter at the beginning of the gap, e.g. ‘W____ you like to sit down'?’
3 The double gap
Here you provide two different sentences with the same word missing in each. The students need to complete the gap with the same word. For example: It’s raining outside, so ____ an umbrella. / Can you ____ a photo of us please?
4 Two gaps per sentence
In this exercise you remove two words from a series of sentences. You provide the pairs of words, the students need to put them in the right gaps.
Would + come; Could+give; Can+pass
_____ you like to _____ to dinner?
_____ you _____ the salt?
_____ you give me a _____?
5 Students make their own gaps
I love this one. You turn the exercise on its head, and ask students to make sentences and gap words. It looks like this:
Write five sentences with gaps to test your partner. Miss out these words in your sentences: TV, desk, wallet, pen, book.
6 Personalised gaps
This kind of gap-fill is more open, the gap is supposed to be completed with the students own ideas or personal information. For example: My favourite food is _______; If I had a million dollars, I would buy __________; I enjoy ______ movies…
There you are, six little gap-fill exercise ideas. I should mention that in the original book there were 10 (so this means you’d need to get the book to see the other gap-fill exercise types, as well as the 490 other ideas :-)
By the way, I should mention that my co-author John Hughes also runs a course now, all about writing materials. This course is co-run by another great writer, Katherine Bilsborough. If you’re interested, or know someone who might be, check it out here.