George C. Bunch

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at University of California, Santa Cruz

In this essay, the authors explore the dilemmas facing researchers, educators, and policymakers in how to refer to multilingual students who are deemed in need of language support in school. There is a growing concern with the label English learner , the term currently used in U.S. federal legislation, as focusing exclusively on students' English l...

As this volume compellingly demonstrates, it is not only language teachers who need to know something about language. All teachers—through their own language use, their understandings and ideologies surrounding their students’ language, and the opportunities they do (or do not) create for students to use and develop language—play a central role in...

This paper describes efforts to challenge prescriptivist notions of “academic language” in one PST preparation course and reports on data from an instructional sequence on scaffolding. We argue that a focus on scaffolding is a productive way to help teacher candidates understand language as a resource for disciplinary practice rather than as a pres...

Despite decades of efforts, deficit narratives regarding language development and use by children and students from historically marginalized backgrounds remain persistent in the United States. Examining selective literature, we discuss the ideologies that undergird two deficit narratives: the notion that some children have a “word gap” when compar...

Despite the importance of community colleges for English Learners’ (ELs’) postsecondary education, little agreement exists regarding how to identify ELs or what policies and practices might strengthen their chances to earn college certificates and degrees. Examining ELs in one community college district, this paper reports on early findings from an...

A still-widespread perspective on “academic language” is that the most important dimension of language used for academic purposes is the extent to which its linguistic features contrast with “everyday language” used outside of school. But focusing on the unique linguistic features of written academic texts ignores the important role that other, mor...

Objective: To inform efforts to boost college completion and professional preparation for the linguistically diverse New Mainstream, we explored language and literacy demands, and how faculty conceive of those demands, in one allied health program at one community college in California. We also explore the implications for the preparation of commun...

This department focuses on literacy leaders, including school and instructional leaders, teachers, and external partners, who are working to improve outcomes for adolescent and adult learners in a wide range of education settings. Columns investigate the challenges and complexities inherent in such work and share lessons learned, impactful strategi...

This essay explores how focusing on language and literacy as “ways of doing” in different academic disciplines and professional fields may spark reconsideration of how best to prepare and support students’ language and literacy development, especially among the linguistically diverse New Mainstream in community colleges.

This book presents an ambitious model for how educators can design high-quality, challenging, and supportive learning opportunities for English learners. Starting with the premise that conceptual, analytic, and language practices develop simultaneously as students engage in disciplinary learning, the authors argue for instruction that amplifies—rat...

This proof of concept study investigated a secondary science teacher preparation intervention in six university programs across Arizona, California, and Texas. Researchers and science method instructors (SMIs) collaboratively restructured respective science method courses to hold fidelity to an interrelated set of instructional practices that atten...

econdary Science Teaching for English Learners: Developing Supportive and Responsive Learning Context for Sense-making and Language Development provides a resource for multiple audiences, including pre- and in-service secondary science teachers, science teacher educators, instructional coaches, curriculum specialists, and administrators, to learn a...

Throughout the United Sta tes, tea cher educa tors a re developing new stra tegies to improve the prepa ra tion of ma instream tea chers for linguistic diversity. In this a rticle, we explore tea cher candida tes’ responses to the Per formance Assessment for Ca lifornia Tea chers (PACT), a preservice a ssessment required for credentia ling tha t re...

This article argues for the importance of integrating a focus on language, literacy, and academic development for United States-educated language minority (US-LM) students, sometimes called Generation 1.5. It describes four initiatives at community colleges in California that aim to do so. US-LM students have completed some K–12 schooling in the Un...

In the United States, new common state standards in English language arts and disciplinary literacy require K–12 students to “read and comprehend complex literary and informational texts independently and proficiently.” Issues of text complexity have spurred debates in the mainstream literacy, educational practice, and policy communities. Issues ra...

Introducing a distinction between language of ideas and language of display as a means of reconceptualizing what counts as “academic” language, I examine one brief stretch of talk by a small group of linguistically diverse 7th grade students in a U.S. mainstream social studies classroom designed to maximize academic and language development opportu...

New demands of the Common Core State Standards imply instructional transformations for all classrooms in the United States, but teachers of students designated as English language learners (ELLs) are among those most likely to feel the impact in their daily professional lives. Language is an integral part of classroom learning in all subject areas,...

Drawing on theoretical perspectives and analytical tools that view writing as meaning-making, we examined student writing associated with an instructional intervention designed to expand the kinds of texts that second-language learners of English were asked to engage with, and produce, in social studies classrooms in a U.S. middle school. Exploring...

Science performance assessments (SPAs) are designed to elicit a wider range of scientific knowledge and abilities than ordinarily measured by more traditional paper-and-pencil tests. To engage in SPAs and thus demonstrate abilities such as scientific inquiry, students must interact with various participants and communicate in a variety of ways. Usi...

Community colleges are critical points of access for language-minority students and others historically underrepresented in U.S. higher education. Yet there is evidence that community colleges are far from reaching their potential as a stepping-stone to 4-year colleges and universities for underrepresented minorities, especially in states with the...

This article report on the development and use of an analytical framework intended to map the language demands encountered by English learners as they engage in science performance assessments. Grounded in functional and interactional views of language and language use, the authors—two science education researchers and a language scholar—developed...

We report on the development and use of an analytical framework designed to articulate the language demands English learners (ELs) encounter on performance assessments such as those used in inquiry-based science classrooms. The Science Assessment Language Demands (SALD) Framework, grounded in functional and interactional views of language and langu...

This article explores challenges and opportunities for language minority students and their monolingual English-speaking classmates during oral presentations in mainstream 7th grade social studies classrooms. The classrooms were designed to provide access to rigorous content and opportunities to develop English for use in academic settings. Student...

Assessing the preparation of preservice candidates for quality teaching, both for mainstream students and for ELs, requires reliable and valid assessments that pay close attention to context, process, and reflection, factors that traditional evaluations of teaching either ignore or undervalue. In this article, the authors focus on one high-stakes p...

For years, well-intentioned educators have arranged school open houses to encourage language minority families to participate in their children's education. These educators know that decades of research tout the benefits of schools partnering with parents. Yet the results of such events are often discouraging. Many teachers and administrators do no...

This article explores language assessments and policies that Latino students and others from immigrant backgrounds face as they graduate from high school and attempt to enter community colleges. Focusing on California, the authors examine the assumptions that underlie these assessments and policies. They argue that the policies signal different con...

In this article, I describe mainstream middle school classrooms designed to re-think the conditions under which language minority students who have lived in the United States for a number of years can develop English language skills while also gaining access to a rigorous curriculum. I describe a variety of transactions that students used to engage...

As students in U.S. schools become increasingly linguistically and culturally diverse, teachers need to understand the language demands inherent in instruction and assessment, and they need to be prepared to design and modify instruction to meet the needs of students from linguistic and cultural backgrounds other than their own. As teacher preparat...

Students who meet the Standards readily undertake the close, attentive reading that is at the heart of understanding and enjoying complex works of literature. They habitually perform the critical reading necessary to pick carefully through the staggering amount of information available today in print and digitally. They actively seek the wide, deep...