Progress you can see.
Language progress is real but hard to see — you're too close to your own English. This is how I teach: what I listen for, what I train, and what stays human.
The arrangement
Plain facts, because they should not be buried.
- Who teaches
- Always me — Jon Weaver. There is no pool of tutors.
- Who you pay
- Jon Weaver English, a UK sole trader. Prices in pounds sterling (£).
- Where
- On Zoom. I teach from Minsk. I grew up in Birmingham.
- Who it is for
- Adults 18+ only. Roughly A2 to B2 speakers who understand more than they can say.
- How you start
- Sign up free on the learn app. Free lasts and carries no obligation to buy. Book a speaking hour when you want the hour.
The gym problem
Go to the gym and progress is black and white. The bar gets heavier, the run gets faster, the scales move. English has never worked like that. You can study for months and feel… about the same.
The progress is real — but it's invisible. And invisible progress is hard to stay motivated for.
Live with a child and you don't notice them growing. A grandparent who visits twice a year sees it at once. You are the parent of your own English — something outside you has to hold the earlier version and show it back.
What I do about it
That view used to be expensive — a teacher transcribing and analysing speech by hand. AI made real multi-step work cheap, not chat-for-opinions cheap. The cost of collecting evidence collapsed.
After each lesson you get a receipt: what I heard, your talk share, marks from the chat, one next step. Not a score. Not a level. Over weeks that pattern becomes proof you are moving — and a map of what to work on next.
Five things I listen for
CALFA is complexity, accuracy, lexis, fluency, adequacy. The three-way attention trade-off (complexity, accuracy, fluency) is Skehan; lexis and adequacy are part of how I listen too. They don't all rise together.
How much you attempt — longer sentences, richer words, harder structures.
How correctly it comes out. Worked on in the lesson, not mid-flow.
The words you reach for — range, fit, and whether they do the job.
How smoothly it comes out. Built by volume and low-pressure practice, not correction alone.
Whether what you said does the job in the situation — enough, on-point, not just grammatical.
When you start reaching for harder sentences, you'll stumble more. That isn't getting worse — it's stretching.
How they interact →Two systems
Your mind runs English two ways — psychologists call them System 1 and System 2. A slow, careful voice checks 'is that right?' mid-sentence. A fast, automatic one simply speaks. Fluency lives in the fast one.
So we train both: focused work for accuracy, and plenty of low-pressure input and use so the automatic system can grow.
A little, every day
Fifteen minutes daily beats three hours on a Sunday. Short daily reading at your level feeds the fast system quietly — you acquire more than you realise, without feeling like you're studying.
Where AI stops
AI makes mistakes. It can't read your mood, share a joke, or give you the small social pressure that makes you actually speak.
Language exists for live communication between people — so the hour with me stays at the centre. AI can help with practice between lessons; the speaking stays human.
What this is built on
The measurement frame is CALFA — complexity, accuracy, lexis, fluency, adequacy. Complexity, accuracy and fluency come from Peter Skehan and later Housen & Kuiken. Input and acquisition from Stephen Krashen; practice and automatisation from Robert DeKeyser; vocabulary and reading from Paul Nation. I am studying for an MA in Language Education at the University of Chichester — slowly, around the lessons.