Hello, and welcome.
I’m so glad you’re here, whether you found The Word Gap by chance or joined this community on purpose. My hope is that this becomes a place where you feel a little more confident using English, and where you never feel like you need to have it all figured out before you belong here.
You might be wondering, why “The Word Gap”?
It’s actually a real term from childhood development. Research shows that kids who hear less talk at home in their early years tend to know fewer words by the time they start school, and that gap can follow them for years. When I came across that term, it stuck with me, because I see a version of it in my students all the time. Not from how much they heard as children, but from how much they’ve actually gotten to speak. Years of English classes, and still not enough real conversation to feel at home in the language.
That’s the gap I want to help close.
The Word Gap is about building the speaking confidence that classroom English so often leaves out. Some issues we’ll dig into include pronunciation and grammar you can actually use. Other times we’ll talk about what it really feels like to learn a language as an adult, mistakes included.
A little about me
I’m a native English speaker, but English was never the only language in my life. I studied French formally in school. Over the years I picked up enough Spanish and Mandarin to travel, then lost most of it from lack of use, the way languages do when you stop reaching for them. Two years ago I moved to Denmark for a year and studied Danish as a foreign language, and that’s the year it all clicked back into place for me, how much I love learning languages and how much language shapes the way we understand a culture.
Right now I speak English fluently, French at a B1 level, and Danish at an A2 level. I know exactly what it feels like to have studied a language for years and still freeze up the moment a real conversation starts. So if that sounds familiar, you’re talking to someone who gets it, not just someone who teaches it.
Before any of this, I was a nurse for two years, including a week volunteering in the Dominican Republic working entirely in Spanish. Later I went back to school for psychology, and that’s where I fell in love with linguistics, for how the brain actually processes language and learns to speak a new one. It was while I was learning Danish in Denmark that I stumbled into EFL tutoring, and that was it for me.
I teach through real, authentic conversation, because that’s how we end up practicing the grammar and vocabulary you’ll actually use in your day to day life. I bring in grammar focus too, so there’s always something concrete to build on. And I want you to make mistakes with me. They’re not something to be embarrassed about, they’re information, and they tell me exactly what to teach you next.
I don’t claim to have it all figured out either. I’m still working on my own language learning, still making my own mistakes. This is as much a space for curiosity as it is for lessons.
As this community grows, I’d love to hear from you. What’s the hardest part of speaking English for you? What topics would help you most? What’s a word or phrase in English that’s never quite made sense?
This isn’t just my newsletter, it’s the beginning of a conversation.
Thank you for being here. Let’s close the gap together.
Until next time,
Caitlyn
The Word Gap
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