The American Council on Teaching of Foreign Language has awarded a research grant to Pamela Wesely and Reuben Vyn for their project titled "Exploring the Effects of Foreign Language Instructional Approaches on Student Proficiency Development: A Mixed Methods study."

Wesely is an associate professor in the College of Education's Department of Teaching and Learning, and Vyn is a Ph.D. student in foreign language and ESL education. Their work focuses on one urban school system and seeks to identify characteristics of effective language teachers. The research will compare foreign language instructional approaches, using both quantitative analysis through standardized test scores, as well as case study examinations of individual teachers. They will also look at contextual factors that impact different instructional approaches (teacher experience, language, instructional level, school demographics).