This scholarship, funded by the IELTS Partners (British Council, IDP IELTS, and Cambridge University Press & Assessment), is given in memory of Morgan Terry. Morgan taught IELTS for many years, trained other teachers, and was prolific in developing test preparation materials for students. This scholarship honours her contribution to IELTS and recognises those who create learning resources to help IELTS test takers prepare for their tests.
The award consists of:
- registration for the Testing, Evaluation and Assessment Special Interest Group (TEASIG) pre-IATEFL conference event
- registration for the IATEFL conference
- a year's IATEFL membership
- a maximum of five nights' accommodation
- travel costs, including, if necessary, an economy flight to the UK* up to a maximum of GBP 1000.00
- GBP 55.00 per day expenses.
*This includes cost of flights and airport transfers, but not the costs of stopovers.
Who is eligible?
To qualify you must:
- have prepared learners for taking an IELTS test
- have never attended the main IATEFL annual conference
- agree to write an article six months after the conference about how attendance has enriched your practice.
How to apply
Your application should give an overview of an educational activity or learning resource that you have developed which could help prospective IELTS test takers prepare for their tests.
We recommend writing no more than 400–500 words to:
- clearly describe or illustrate your idea, what it is and how it works
- explain how it could benefit prospective test takers
- describe how it could be adapted and used by other teachers and learners.
Submissions will be evaluated in terms of originality, potential impact upon learning, and accessibility.
You can apply, via IATEFL's website, from mid-April/early May and the deadline for submission is 14:00 (UK time) 19 June 2025. The winner will be notified at the start of September.
Past scholarship winners
Interested in applying but not sure where to start? Seek inspiration from our past scholarship winners. Their creative and innovative classroom ideas have helped IELTS students improve their English language skills in preparation for the test.
Watch the videos to find out why they applied, what their winning ideas were, and how you can apply.
I applied for the IELTS IATEFL Morgan Terry Scholarship, because I saw it as a great opportunity, to show how virtual reality, can really help students.
We started using virtual reality during the global lockdowns and then from there we kind of saw the potential to use it not just for general English, but also for IELTS preparation and so we looked at Writing Academic Task 1, in which you compare two maps and we actually created the virtual worlds.
So this really helped them to understand what were some of the main differences between the two maps and really understand what the task was actually asking of them.
At this conference I've just learned so much. Everything from AI, to using lexical strategies in the classroom, and it's amazing and inspiring to learn from my colleagues and peers from all over the world and this conference in particular is just a great opportunity to learn and to continue to expand my teaching practice.
If you're thinking of applying, I say go for it, what you're doing might be absolutely new to people outside you and outside your organisation and it's a great opportunity to show what you're bringing to IELTS teaching and it's an amazing conference to come to, so you should definitely apply.
2022 and 2023 scholarship winners
Anestin: My name is Anestin Chi, I come from the Republic of Cameroon. I am an English and French languages teacher.
Natalia: I am Natalia from Italy and I've been a teacher since 2016. I've taught different ages and I used to be a teacher online and now I mainly teach face-to-face courses.
Anestin: My first motivation wasn't so much about winning the scholarship, it was about selling an idea, making, sharing it out.
So I saw a platform where I could share my vocabulary clock idea, say how it works and how it could be re-adapted in a context.
Natalia: So my winning idea was inspired by one teenage student because he's sad, he had no ideas whatsoever. But I knew that he was really into watching the The Office series. So I said, just pretend that you're one of the characters and give me answers to my questions, I will guess who you are. So there was like an element of a game. His speaking improved miraculously.
The IELTS judges are looking for creativity, and maybe for a different approach if you love an activity and you think it'll really help you with something, you should go for it. You should try to submit it.
Anestin: The first thing is to get the judge to be able to visualize your ideas so make it explicit in the way that they could actually picture it and see it in action
Natalia: It was so easy to apply for the scholarship, because it's specially designed for people who have never attended the conference.
Anestin: My advice to teachers who are thinking of applying will be, take the bold step, don’t be afraid.
Natalia: Just 400-500 words, your idea, that you really love and cherish. You just write it very quickly. Press submit. That's all. You go to Britain. If you’re lucky!