The Rehearsal Deficit in OET Speaking: A Conceptual Framework for Construct-Aligned Rehearsal

This conceptual working paper examines the gap between knowing what effective, assessment-aligned clinical communication requires and performing it reliably under timed OET Speaking roleplay conditions. It develops five propositions and a seven-stage rehearsal cycle—diagnose, model, notice, rehearse, perform, reflect, and re-perform—with attention to behaviour-specific feedback, transfer to unseen encounters, and the use of generative AI as constrained rehearsal infrastructure. The paper develops a conceptual argument and research agenda; it does not report an original empirical study or reproduce the design or instruments of the author’s doctoral research proposal.