Implementing Project-Based Language Teaching to Develop EFL High School Students’ Key Competences
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The importance of project-based studies is increasing day by day. The use of the mixed methods in the study increases the quality. If the most important results and implications are mentioned in the summary part of the study, the summary will be in a better structure.
The study's problem situation and the research's purpose are clearly stated.
How were interview questions developed? Have you received an expert opinion?
Figure 2 is too small to read
Findings obtained from qualitative data can be thematized and presented in tables.
In conclusion, his contributions to international literature should be mentioned.
References should be supported by current sources from the last 2-3 years.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Thank you.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
1. In the abstract, the authors stated, "Also, the study provides important implications for language instructors". This is a general statements but the authors are advised to add 1-2 sentences discussing the implications themselves.
2. In line 297, person should be changes to Pearson. It is a typo.
3. The authors did not discuss the validity of the tests and the interviews. They should clarify how the validity was examined.
4. Regarding the interview questions, the authors should provide more information if it is a semi-structured review or structured one. Are review questions adopted from another source? if so, teh reference should be provided. are they self-developed? If so, how the reliability and validity of the interview questions were examined.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Thank you.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Implementing Project-based Language Teaching to Develop EFL High School Students’ Key Competences
In this paper it is argued that Project-based Language Teaching develops EFL High School students’ key competences. The context of study is China and the key competences are tested by means of a reading test.
The merits of the study are that it has been carried out in China, in which Project-based Language Teaching (PBLT) has just started to be implemented in certain classes, and in which a large-scale project helps teachers to implement it in their classes. The results of the study show that PBLT has some effect on the development of key competences. However, the results may not come as a surprise, since the experimental group was trained in developing key competences by means of PBLT, while the control group was not.
In Section 1 it is explained what PBLT is. It is not clear what the difference is with Task-Based Learning, a notion which may also be very familiar to the readers. The paper suggests that the two differ (in Section 1.4), but it is not explained how.
In the Methodology section, it is not clear how many teachers participated in the project. At several occasions the reader is told that there were two teachers, but there were two classes involved in the project which were taught by the same teacher. Was this one of the two teachers? Or another teacher?
What is missing in the Methodology section is a subsection on the materials used. They come only at the end of the paper, it seems that no reference is made to the appendix, and it is not made clear how the key competences are tested by means of reading. It is not made clear either how the project could help the students to improve their key competences, which would be revealed in the post-test.
In Section 3.6 the reader is not told who analyzed the students’ answers to the tests. Were these the teachers? Could this have influenced the results?
The quantitative results are very difficult to understan for a reader who is not familiar with Wright Maps or WINSTEP. If the text is printed, Figure 1 is too small. The most important results seem to be those from Table 3, but it is not clear why percentages are used. Why percentages instead of mean scores? What seems to emerge from the results is that the control group scored already lower in the pre-test and even lower in the post-test, which asks for an explanation. It is not clear why it is said in the text that there is a significant improvement with respect to B3, since the percentage in the post-test is lower. On the other hand, A3 is not mentioned, although there seems to be a significant improvement in that case.
The results from the qualitative data resulting from the interview are not always supported by the quantitative results. It should be stressed where they overlap and where not.
In the Discussion, a relation with the research questions should be more clearly established (impacts and factors). The impacts are not clearly discussed. Why would the project have provided these impacts?
In the appendix, only the questions but not the text is represented. It is not clear what the texts are about, and how the theme of the project is related to the texts. The project was about the city the students live in, but the texts seem to concern another subject. Why weren’t the two subjects related, which one would expect in a PBLT approach?
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Thank you.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
Thank you for your answers to my comments, including the lines. Sometimes an answer is in the reply but not in the text (why percentages? lower scores of the control group). English should be checked by a native speaker of English, especially in the newly added text.
Author Response
Thanks for pointing out the incomplete revision in the article.
The mentioned reply has been added to the text. Please see lines [439-441] for the percentages and lines [445-447] for the lower scores of the control group. As for language, we invited a native speaker of English to help us polish the language and the newly added language has also been checked.
Thanks again for your valuable suggestions. We sincerely appreciate your efforts.
