Crawler gets wood on learners with hesitation (9)
I believe the answer is:
groveller
'crawler' is the definition.
(I know that groveller is a type of crawler)
'wood on learners with hesitation' is the wordplay.
'wood' becomes 'grove' (a grove is a small wood).
'on' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'learners' becomes 'LL' (the abbreviation for learner driver written twice).
'with' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'hesitation' becomes 'er' (sound made while hesitating - um, er).
'grove'+'ll'+'er'='GROVELLER'
'gets' acts as a link.
(Another definition for groveller that I've seen is " Sycophant".)