Retelling of Stories with Common Phrasal Expressions by High-Proficiency Learners: Implications for Learning and High-Stakes Testing

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper tackles an important issue and is reader friendly. However, I have some concerns that I think should be addressed before publication.

- The title states that the paper will discuss implications for learning. However, there's not much discussion about this in the paper. 

 - Literature review is quite outdated. The most recent reference is from 2023. There's a growing body of research delving into the variables and the method examined in this paper. Overall, the paper lacks thorough discussion of the current literature both in Literature Review and Discussion. 

- On the table on page 4: the example does not contain "as long as".

- Page 9. "the gap between the higher-proficiency competent group and the FLE group was very noticeable". While reading the paper, I was reflecting on what research says on effects of task familiarity. As you know, NS and NNS are familiar with different types of tasks. Most L1 speakers are never required to recite a text whereas most L2 learners use this technique as a learning activity. Maybe FLE group were somewhat overwhelmed by doing something like this 4 times in a row? Is it a farfecthed idea, I really don't know? I would find retelling a story really weird in my L1, however I'm used to doing it in my L2 and also I'm more focused on my speech in my L2. At this point, maybe I can suggest the author to consider discussing research pertaining to attention in L1 and L2 speech? 

- On page 10. "surgical procedures": The meaning of this phrase in this context is not clear to me. 

- Overall, the paper has great potential. It just needs some revision in terms of discussion and literature, in my opinion. 

 

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer, 

I am very grateful for the comments and suggestions that you made. I have made a detailed explanation of my response to your advice. I hope you find it convincing. 

Best regards

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Overall recommendation: Accept after Minor Revisions

Title: Retelling of Stories with Common Phrasal Expressions by 2 High-proficiency Learners: Implications for Learning and High-3 Stakes Testing

Summary

Aims: check L2 learner performance of auditory memory retell story test and role of common expressions use in 3 levels of proficiency compared with first language speakers, are these tests appropriated for L2 speakers when used for medical diagnosis?

Conclusion: Increase in idea unit scores aligns with proficiency, higher level proficiency participants re-used more common expressions. Elicited imitation tests are likely inappropriate for moderate proficiency language users as a means of medical assessment, but appear appropriate for competent language users.

Contributions: Shows the importance of phrasal knowledge for elicited imitation tests, has implications for neurological assessments, shows importance of L2 proficiency for validity of such tests. Links use of common phrases with proficient language users and highlights the processing advantage that knowledge of such phrases provides the language user.

Article: Methods - Presumably participants’ speech was recorded and transcribed – these details have been left out and would be helpful to include for reproducibility. Explanation would be helpful regarding how accurate phrase use needed to be to be counted? Was there a time limit for speaking? What did participants listen to? Was it an audio recording or the researcher reading each time? There is no mention of data availability – will this be made available?

Review: The topic is relevant and review complete, gap in knowledge is identified, references seem appropriate

Specific comments:

LINE 18 What are FLEs? (introduced in abstract) First Language English – meaning of abbreviation in first instance of use should be included (in the abstract)

Line 22 less proficient individuals

Table 1: the example for ‘as long as’ doesn’t match (needs correcting).

LINE 208 FLEs compared with SLEs(?)

LINE 225 Group 2 residency length is missing

LINE 226 unassigned data 0.63 1.54 years (perhaps for Group 2?)

LINE 253-257 – perhaps explain the general characteristic of the LMS test that guided the creation of these texts to help validate them to the reader as similar to the LMS texts.

LINE 262 (was) remove

LINE 268 idea (s) units

LINE 277 competent (competence)

LINE 284 Are these scores for idea units? Need to clarify in title

 

332 total idea unit score? Clarify which score is being analysed

What were the instructions for the task? Was verbatim repetition emphasised?

363 call => recall

369 clarify the comparison -  higher scores related to what? Related to increased proficiency?

370 long recall test – clarify if this is for idea units?

380 noticeable (spelling) – perhaps explain your interpretation for the lack of difference between competent and FLE group on long recall test?

391 (they) the country

392 (thanks) years?

395 There is reference to 3 types of stories (short, medium & long) , but 4 stories are listed (appendix has 4) analysis refers to only 3 – this is confusing – were story 2 and 3 analysed as one middle story? Perhaps label the appendix stories with short, medium & long to clarify.

431 – unclear what is meant by this sentence (assess, in a non-evaluative way?)

435 (possibility) possibly

446: (suggestion for clarity) and in this research, how second language ability can influence the potential outcomes in clinical neuropsychology assessments

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer, 

I am very grateful for your careful checking of my manuscript and pointing out the points that needed to be corrected or revised. 

The attached file shows all the lines that I have adjusted based on your feedback. It was most helpful.

Best regards! 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf