Clozes, also know as “gap-fills,” are good tools for assessing vocabulary and comprehension and for helping students learn about context clues.

Most clozes you find on the web, I think, are fairly useless because they create the clozes using some kind of formula instead of omitting words strategically. Having students create clozes, and then having their classmates complete them, maximize their learning benefit. I’ve written a longer explanation of how I use them at Use “LearnClick” For An Excellent Metacognitive Lesson.

Here are my choices for The Best Tools For Creating Clozes (Gap-Fills):

I like LearnClick a lot. You can read more here how I use it (unfortunately, it’s begun to charge a a subscription fee for use).

Smile is a free web tool from Michigan State University, and allow teachers (and students) to easily create clozes, drag-and-drop exercises, and sequencing activities. They also allow you to use audio and video with the activities, and will host them as well.

One simple way to make clozes that you print out is just to copy and paste text in a Word document and strategically delete the words you want people to fill-in.

Life Beyond Gap-fill? is from Richmond Share.

Re-imagining the grammar classics: The personalized gap fill is from Teach Them English.


Student Instructions For How They Can Create A Cloze (Gap-Fill)

Fill in the Blank / Cloze Sentence Worksheets is from The Teacher’s Corner.

Create a Cloze Test

Cloze Test Worksheet Maker

Click School

Tools – Gapfill generator

I saw an interesting version of a cloze/gap-fill that had students choose the correct multi-word phrases instead of the usual one word answers. I hadn’t though of that “twist” before…

Cloze Test Activity, Blog de Cristina’s Style is from…Blog de Cristina.

Gap Fill Gamble is from The British Council.

Sandy Millin has written an extensive post about sessions she attended at the annual IATEFL conference. It’s all interesting, but the last one on clozes/gap-fills is really worth reading.

Cloze it is a Google Docs add-on that lets you easily create clozes.

Create “Cloze Reading” Activities with Google Docs Dropdown Chips is from Eric Curtis.

VocabBoost lets you easily create clozes.

Lesson Ninja is a new tool for ELL teachers where you can – for a little more than five dollars each month – easily create exercises like clozes.

 

Additional suggestions are welcome.

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