About LU English
English tutoring built around
diagnosis, not random practice.
LU English was created by Sean Kivi to help students find the real reason their score is stuck — then fix that reason through targeted live lessons and structured practice.
Book a diagnostic session →$25 · 60 minutes · ranked fix list
Meet Sean Kivi, founder of LU English
After 10+ years teaching students across 7 countries, I see the same pattern again and again: students practice harder, but the score does not move because the real problem has not been identified.
In the first session, it becomes clear. It's not that they can't write. It's not that they don't know the vocabulary. The issue is usually something specific: they finish ideas too early. Their writing builds to the point instead of leading with it. They know what they want to say but lose it under time pressure.
A score tells you the result — it doesn't tell you whether your writing structure, speaking speed, or idea development is the real cause. Without that, every practice session is a guess.
My work sits between language teaching, translation, and bilingual education. I am interested in what happens between knowing English and being able to use it quickly, clearly, and under pressure. That gap is where most stuck students lose points.
Grammar and vocabulary are not enough.
The real test is what your brain does under pressure.
Most students have been taught to study English. What high-stakes English tests measure is whether you can access English under time pressure — and that's a different skill entirely.
What most students do
Practice more vocabulary. Do more mock tests. Study grammar rules. Repeat until something changes. But if they don't know which specific skill is causing the problem, more practice just reinforces the same mistake.
What we identify first
Whether the main idea is buried or leads the paragraph. Whether ideas are being finished one step too early. Whether the speaking response has structure or just vocabulary. Once that's identified, the fix is targeted — and fast.
How I diagnose the problem
Not a placement test. Not a mock exam. A real diagnostic — working through your output to find the specific cause.
We look at your writing first
Where is the main idea? Is it leading the paragraph or buried at the end? Are ideas developed fully or cut short? These structural patterns show up quickly — and they can be the difference between staying around 105 and moving toward 120.
Then we test speaking under real time pressure
Not just vocabulary. Structure, fluency, and whether responses have a clear arc. Most speaking issues aren't vocabulary problems — they're retrieval problems. The word is there. Accessing it in 90 seconds is the issue.
Reading and listening — speed or comprehension?
Two different problems with completely different fixes. Slow readers need speed training. Students losing inference points need a different approach entirely. The diagnostic tells us which one.
You leave with a ranked fix list
Not "practice more." A specific, ordered list of what to fix first — and why. Every session after the diagnostic targets something on that list. No guessing.
Background & credentials
Education
MA Translation Studies
University of Nottingham — understanding how language transfers between systems is the foundation of diagnosing why non-native writers make the choices they do.
Texas Bilingual Educator Certificate
State Board for Educator Certification — formal training in how bilingual learners acquire and produce language.
Cambridge Exam Preparation
FCE, CAE, CPE — experience across multiple high-stakes English testing formats.
Experience
10+ years · 7 countries
Teaching across multiple education systems and first-language backgrounds. Arabic, Spanish, French, Turkish, Chinese — each first-language background can shape English output in different ways.
127+ students
DET, IELTS, TOEFL, academic English, and bilingual kids — across every fluency level from single-word production to C1.
Built the DET Membership platform
10 levels of structured practice matched to your current score — built from the ground up to give students targeted practice between live sessions.
Teaching philosophy
The problem is usually not knowledge.
Students who are stuck don't need more vocabulary or more grammar rules. They need to know which specific thing is costing them points — and a targeted way to fix it. More unfocused practice makes the problem worse, not better.
English structure is not universal.
Many students bring first-language writing habits into English. In English test writing, the main idea usually needs to lead, and the support needs to follow clearly. This is one of the most common causes of flat writing scores — and it's invisible without a diagnosis.
Speed under pressure is a trainable skill.
High-stakes English tests don't give you time to think the way you do in a practice session. Accessing language quickly under real time pressure is something you train — not something you either have or don't. The diagnostic identifies whether this is the blocker, and sessions build it directly.
You already know more than your score shows.
One diagnostic session finds exactly what's blocking it — and gives you a ranked list of what to fix first.
Book a diagnostic session →$25 · 60 minutes · clear next steps