Why I Built Fluency Unleashed

I studied Spanish for four years. In Spain, I still couldn't speak it.

That experience stayed with me. Over the next ten years, I taught English, opened my own school, and kept learning languages myself.

About Lucas

Spain · 2016

School had taught me Spanish. Spain showed me what I was missing.

At 24, I quit my digital marketing job in Denver and moved to Spain to start an agency. Remote work was still unusual, and the business was difficult to get moving. I started teaching English to support myself.

I arrived expecting four years of Spanish classes to carry me. In ordinary conversations, I froze. I made basic mistakes, missed what people were saying, and often couldn't make myself understood.

I enrolled in a language school, but I still struggled outside the classroom. Later, while living in the Netherlands, I completed roughly 150 Pimsleur lessons and returned to Spain whenever I could. Repeated speaking practice finally made my Spanish conversational.

Knowing the answer in an exercise didn't mean I could find the words while another person waited for me to speak.

Lucas Weaver wearing a Botafogo jersey beside a person dressed as Stitch — Wearing a Botafogo jersey and posing with Stitch during my time in Brazil.

Learning Languages Again

Living abroad kept reminding me how hard speaking can feel before you're ready.

Years later, I started repeating the same experiment in new languages: study before arriving, then use whatever I knew with real people. I did it with Korean in South Korea, Japanese in Japan, Mandarin in Taiwan, Vietnamese in Vietnam, and Thai in Thailand.

I wanted to understand what it feels like to speak with a limited vocabulary while the conversation keeps moving. Every mistake happens in front of another person.

I went much further with Portuguese. I completed roughly 120 audio lessons, took 25 one-hour private lessons, and spent two extended stays in Brazil speaking every day with friends, locals, and roommates.

I also returned to Spanish while traveling through Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia. I still take lessons, still make mistakes, and still feel the difference between understanding a language and trusting yourself to use it.

Rotterdam

I wasn't a great English teacher when I started.

A language-school owner hired me to teach Business English because I understood sales, marketing, and startups. I understood the situations my students faced, but I still had a lot to learn about grammar and how to teach it.

I studied grammar and teaching methods, reviewed lessons that hadn't worked, and improved one class at a time. I went on to teach C1 and C2 courses, IELTS preparation, and my own IELTS workshops. In 2018, I founded my English school, Weaver English, in Rotterdam.

The school grew to include private coaching and group courses. When COVID closed the classrooms, I used the development skills I'd learned during five years at a social-impact FinTech to move the work online. I eventually left my Head of Growth role to focus on it full-time.

Before teaching, I studied sport management at Texas A&M, interned with the Houston Dynamo, tried to build a textbook auction site, and worked in digital marketing and sales. I finished among the top five salespeople in North America at both companies where I worked. That background still helps me understand the meetings, interviews, client conversations, and career decisions my students bring into a lesson.

What I Saw In Class

A lot of my students knew more English than they could use in the moment.

Many of my students could read contracts, understand technical documents, and write careful emails. In a fast meeting or difficult conversation, their English stopped reflecting how experienced they were.

More general grammar lessons weren't going to fix that. We had to find the exact moments where their communication broke down and practice them in situations that looked like their real work.

That's still how I coach. I listen for the words, sounds, rhythms, and moments of hesitation that make someone harder to follow. Then we work on them inside realistic meetings, presentations, interviews, negotiations, and client conversations.

2016

Started teaching English

10+

Years coaching English

1,000+

Professionals coached

50+

Five-star reviews across Google, Trustpilot, and client feedback

Real Students, Specific Goals

Their English affected what they could do next.

Students often came to me because an IELTS result could affect a master's application, an immigration plan, or a new job. We weren't practicing for an abstract goal. They needed the English for something that was already happening in their lives.

Lucas Weaver with his former IELTS student Seyma — Seyma earned the IELTS result she needed for her master's degree.

Lucas Weaver celebrating an IELTS result with his former student Lisette — Lisette after receiving a 7.5 in IELTS writing.

Next Step

If English still makes you sound less experienced than you are, tell me where it happens.

Share your role, the situations that feel hardest, and what you want to change. I'll recommend the coaching path that fits your work and current level.