An Overview Of The Language Sample Analysis As A Kind Of Assessment Skills Of Children's Expressive Language

The development of speech and language is a very effective indicator for the whole development and cognitive ability of children, and is related to school success. Oral expressive language ability is very important for the 5-6 years children, who are soon rising into the elementary school. It is an essential skill for children to prepare for the soon starting school life. In consideration of the importance of language ability, a large number of assessment instruments of speech and language ability have been developed in abroad, they are aimed at questions in different areas of language system, including three styles which are parent report, standardized test and language sample analysis skill. The language sample analysis skill has been applied in language assessment more and more, specially of which applied area is extending in preschool children.The basic program of language sample analysis is (a) eliciting a suit language sample by some way(such as conversation, freeplay and story generation), (b) recording children's language by tape-record equipment and transmitting them into written language, (c) analyzing the language samples with the designed measuring indices. From the acquired samples, we can analyze the syntax skills, the semantic development, the actual use of language and the language intelligence. Different researches will choose their own method of eliciting language sample and measuring indices according to their research purpose.At present, there has been a lot of related research on language sample analysis abroad, no matter about the method of eliciting language sample or about the measuring indices of language sample. However, there is little related research on children's expressive language ability in home. Only parent report and standardized test are existed. The skill of language sample analysis is still blank.Therefore, this paper emphasizes on the assessment skill of children's expressive language-language sample analysis, which is common applied abroad. This paper introduces and summarizes the eliciting method and measuring indices of language sample; analyzes the feasibility of abroad existing research quoted in Chinese research, based on the differences of culture and language; opposes the tentative proposal of Chinese children's language sample analysis, which is tentatively analyzed in this paper, in order to address some suggestions for future research.