MANGO-GAP: A free program for making browser-based gap filling exercises with optional sound
This is a system offering great flexibility in making computer-based gap-filling exercises for language learning. All the necessary components can be downloaded in a zipped folder. The only additional thing you need is to have Adobe AIR installed on your computer: http://get.adobe.com/air/
The operation of the authoring program, mango-gap, is described below, and you can try out the resulting exercise using the live example.
The authoring program allows the author to type or paste in text and then select parts to be replaced by asterisks, or other chosen character, in the exercise. Text replacement is seamless and on a character-by-character basis, so that only chosen letters within individual words may be replaced if so desired. Any number of playback links, each corresponding to an mp3 file, may also be added at desired points within the text to make listening exercises. The program also allows the exercise appearance (text size and colors, background colors, etc.) to be adjusted easily.
When the exercise user clicks the Check button after filling in some or all of the missing letters, correct and incorrect letters will change to, e.g., green and red respectively. Clicking anywhere within the text moves the cursor directly to the next position which has not yet been filled and confirmed correct. Clicking a playback link plays the corresponding sound. try it out:
The exercise itself is a Flash movie, the contents and appearance of which are determined by two xml files, gapfill.xml and design.xml (one to control each aspect), which the authoring program generates.
When you unzip the downloaded file, you will find a folder named mango-gap containing the authoring program installer, mango-gap.air, and a folder named uploadFiles which contains the template files the authoring program will use to generate your exercises. Put the entire mango-gap folder, or a copy of it, into your documents folder ('MyDocuments' in the case of Windows). You will then need to install the authoring program (first installing Adobe AIR if it is not already on your computer) by double-clicking the .air file. You can move this file anywhere ifyou like, but the mango-gap folder and its subfolder uploadFiles must always be left in the documents folder. When you make your exercises, you will find them in the mango-gap folder.
Having installed the mango-gap application, you will see that there are 2 tabs in the program, Text and Appearance. Follow the instructions on the Text tab, and make your exercise:
The Appearance tab brings up this interface. Changes you make will be reflected in the Preview panel on the right. When you are satisfied with the appearance, click the Make file button, and that appearance will become the new default scheme for subsequent exercises. Note that the current design.xml file in the mango-gap folder controls the appearance of generated exercises, so you can rename files containing designs you might want to use again, and name them back to reactivate them. Of course you can also upload new design files to change the appearance of already uploaded exercises.
The example looked like this in the making. Parts to be blanked out in the exercise are changed to pink, and links to sound files are underlined green:
When you click the Finished! button, the exercise naming box comes up. Enter a name and click Make exercise.
You should get confirmation as below.will then find the new exercise in a folder (named "maryjohn" in this case) inside the mango-gap folder.
You can then find the new exercise in a folder (named "maryjohn" in this case) inside the mango-gap folder. It is ready for uploading as soon as mp3 files, if needed, are put into it. The exercise folders can be uploaded to, e.g., your site's "gap-exercises" directory and be accessed from the URL www.yoursite.com/gap-exercises/exercise1, ...exercise2, ...exercise3, etc. Note that they will not work locally on the computer, except on an internally installed server.
For customization, modify the html file, or replace it completely with your own (in which case the Scripts folder will no longer be needed). You just need to embed the gapfill.swf Flash file, and ensure the sound effect file sound1.mp3 is in the same folder. If you want to change the sound effect, replace the sound1.mp3 file by your own mp3 sound effect file (a silent one if you don't want any sound). You can make these changes to an individual exercise once it has been made, or if you make changes to the files in the uploadFiles sub-folder of the mango-gap folder - which serves as a template - they will be reflected in the exercises you subsequently make.
The xml files can also be edited in a text editor or xml editor, without using the mango-gap program (they are reasonably self-explanatory), but mistakes may render an exercise inoperable. You can include Japanese (or other non-alphabetic languages, I expect) in the gapfill.xml file, though not as part of the gaps to be filled. If you edit the file by hand, an editor which cannot handle utf-8 properly may cause problems.
email for questions, comments, etc.:
Myles O'Brien, Mie Prefectural College of Nursing, Japan.
Download the zip file