The Maria Isabel Abreu Award is given for the best research article on the teaching of Portuguese as a foreign language. A $500 honorarium accompanies this award. Articles published after 2004 written in Portuguese, Spanish or English, on the subject of teaching Portuguese as a foreign language are eligible for consideration for the award. Special consideration is given for articles published in the journal of Hispania.

The co-recipients of the 2009 Maria Isabel Abreu Award are Maria Antonia Cowles, University of Pennsylvania; Philadelphia, PA, and Lyris Wiedemann, Stanford University, Stanford, CA.

Their article "The Impact of Target-Country versus Home-Country Immersion Programs on Foreign Language Learners of Portuguese" was published in 2008 in Connections, the official journal of the Southern Conference on Language Teaching.

Their exploratory study is the first-known investigation using measurable and replicable data concerning the acquistion of Portuguese in the context of summer programs. The study contributes insights to curriculum designers in terms of immersion program structure, methodologies, and learning/teaching strategies; guides teacher education programs with respect to pedagogical training; opens doors for studies to maximize language instruction at the advanced levels in immersion contexts and addresses the national need for advanced-level foreign language speakers within an optimal time frame.

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