Do it yourself gap-fill

Aim:

To develop students’ ability and confidence in completing Part 2 tasks

Target Audience:

Teachers and / or students

Relevance to ICFE Reading:

Part 2

Organisation:

Pairs

Materials needed:

1 copy per person any Part 2 gap-fill text from a past ICFE paper

  1. Select an ICFE Part 2 past paper to use for discussion.

  2. Select a number of texts of suitable length and topic from the internet or from business publications.

  3. Discuss the features of Part 2 with students. Talk about what kinds of words are tested in this part of the ICFE examination (prepositions, conjunctions, auxiliaries, phrasal verbs, pronouns, etc.), the number of missing words, how far apart the gaps are (and why that might be), etc.

  4. Give out the texts (one for each pair).

  5. Ask students to remember what was discussed (above). Tell students to blank out words in their texts to create a gap fill. (This can be done either on a computer or using a heavy marker pen.)

  6. Tell students to make a note of the answers on a separate piece of paper.

  7. Tell pairs to swap exercises and to try to fill the gaps. Help with any problems or disputes which may arise.

  8. Check the answers.