Zhejiang University Hangzhou
Workshop / The Use of Multimedia Teaching Technologies

Dr. H. Werner Hess
Hong Kong Baptist University
Dept. of Government and International Studies

 Working with Hot Potatoes: 
JCloze (Gap-Filling)

In this part, you will create gap-filling exercises. 

For the purpose of this exercise, we use a short biography of Vincent van Gogh, published in Russia, at Olga's Gallery. The text (slightly shortened) is already pre-saved for you here. Copy this text into Word/Frontpage and save it as a Web page (*.htm) under the name vangtxt.htm (in your main desktop folder). 
Gap-filling exercises can be used for various purposes. You can have students review vocabulary or grammar. You can also train and test their ability to reconstruct a entire text. In this part, we will try out all three possibilities.

  • Open the Hot Potatoes suite and click on "JCloze". 

  • Enter a title. The new exercise should have the title "Vincent van Gogh as a Young Man".

  • Open the text file vangtxt.htm. Copy the first four paragraphs (until ..."dark, somber colors" and paste it into the JCloze text box.

Now you want to create a vocabulary review exercise.

Double-click on words that should be left out from the student text. Each time, click on "Gap". Hot Potatoes will let you enter a clue for the student (to help him/her find the correct word). It will also allow you to enter other words with the same meaning ("Alternate  Correct Answers").

A permitted synonym for "vicar", for example, could be "parson".

You can undo you gap selection by clicking on the word again and then "Delete Gap".

Now make your own selection of 'gapped' words. 
Please note that for vocab review purposes, it makes sense to delete words which belong to the same or related semantic fields.

Afterwards, configure your exercise as you have learned before. This time, have a look at the "Buttons" tap in the configuration screen. If you check the box "Include Hint Button", student can get the first letter of a word they are trying to find. If you check "Include Clue button", students will see a question mark next to the respective gap; clicking on it will give them the clue that you have pre-programmed for them (if any).

Save your file as vangogh3.jcl and export it as a Web page (vangogh3.htm). Your exercise is complete.

Note that such an exercise assumes that the students already know the text beforehand. You may also include it as a reading text - with a timer function (see previous step).

 
For a simple grammar review exercise, you might delete all verbs in the text. Students would then have to do a combined vocab/grammar exercise - by first finding a correct verb and secondly inserting it in the correct past tense form. 

To do so repeat all previous steps (see above). As text basis, select the following two paragraphs, which describe Vincent Van Gogh's life in Paris.

Insert the gaps at the position of all verbs. This time, you might provide clues - so that the students are not too much bothered with vocab selection but rather concentrate on grammatical forms. These clues could, for example, be the first two or three letters of the verb.

Save this grammar-oriented exercise as vangogh4.jcl and vangogh4.htm. Give it the title "The Paris Years".
JCloze also has an "Auto-Gap" function. This allows you to remove every n-th word from the text. The more words you remove, the more difficult it becomes for the student to reconstruct the entire text. 

Such a cloze test aims at text comprehension rather than vocab/grammar (although students must, of course, pay attention to the latter as well). Such tasks can be extremely demanding for students.

To create an Auto-Gap exercise, repeat all previous steps (see above). As text basis, select the paragraphs, which describe Vincent Van Gogh's life in Arles.

Click on "Auto-Gap" and determine which words are to be left out e.g. every fourth, or sixth ...).

This time, you might want to help your students a little. Therefore, go to the configuration screen and click on the "Prompt/Feedback" tab. At the bottom of the screen check the box next to "Include Word List with Text". All deleted words will later appear in a box t he top of the exercise - making text reconstruction easier.

Proceed as usual. Save this exercise as vangogh5.jcl and vangogh45htm. Give it the title "Arles".
Don't forget to list all these exercises in your lesson page and to hyperlink them. Your lesson page should now look like this:

 

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