Perceptions of a multimedia syllabus: Making the demands of a performance test more accessible

This article evaluates a multimedia program produced to support test takers facing a new performance test (the Classroom Language Assessment test) for English as a second language (ESL) teachers in Hong Kong as part of a language certification test. The article describes how groups of trainee ESL teachers in Hong Kong were first introduced to the test via the print syllabus produced by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government. After a 3-month time lag, they had the demands of the test explained to them again, but this time with the support of a multimedia program. After each session, the trainee teachers were asked to fill in a questionnaire which probed them for their understanding of the aims and demands of the test, their attitude towards the test and how confident they felt about passing. Paired t-tests run between the two sets of questionnaires revealed significant positive differences, indicating that participants felt the multimedia program helped them to better understand the test requirements. The paper concludes with a discussion of the importance of multimedia as syllabus ‘support’—especially in the case of oral or performance tests. Copyright © 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.