Who won the 2024 Michael Berman scholarship?
Meet Maryam Mirshahnasab, winner of our Michael Berman award:
Mery is an English teacher from Iran now based in Manchester. Her commitment to education is evident with over a decade dedicated to ELT and IELTS instruction. She stood out as a top student during her bachelor’s degree in English Translation, achieving an exceptional rank of 19.14 out of 20 among 99 students. This pursuit of excellence led her to Shahid Beheshti, a high-ranking university in Iran, where she deepened herlinguistic insights with a Master’s in Linguistics.
Mery then joined Rahpouyandegan, a leading English institute in Mashhad, her hometown, where she helped numerous students achieve their targeted IELTS band scores between 6 and 8. In response to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, Mery founded LingoBee, an online English academy. Driven by a keen desire to advance technology integration in education, she charted her path to the University of Manchester, where she further deepened her expertise by completing her second Master’s, specializing in TESOL with a Technology pathway. She is now at the forefront of exploring how Virtual Reality can redefine IELTS Speaking performance and enhance student affective and cognitive engagement.