Beliefs

BELIEFS

Hello, to the fourth lesson. This one is called “Beliefs.” Let’s started.

Beliefs are another important part of managing your psychology, of strengthening psychology so that you will learn English, or anything in fact, faster. And there are two kinds of beliefs to general categories beliefs. Limiting and empowering.
Let’s talk about limiting beliefs first. Now limiting means, limit something that stops you. It’s like a boundary. It stops you from ahead. So a limiting belief is a belief that stops you improving, a belief that stops you from getting better. And I’d most English students have limiting beliefs and many English students have strong limiting beliefs. I call these beliefs English trauma and I that name from a few of my Japanese students. would tell me “AJ, I can’t speak English well I have English trauma.”
What is English trauma? What is that, what they talking about? Well, trauma means some kind of injury, some of hurt. Emotional hurt, deep emotional hurt. So what mean is that they had some very negative, painful experiences with English in past. In other words, when they were in school English classes, even as adults going to other English schools, they had negative experiences. And all these negative experiences have created some very negative beliefs, some limiting beliefs. For example, they say “I am not at English.” Well, that’s a belief. It may be true, it may not true. But it’s an opinion, it’s a belief that have.
Another belief, a very common belief, English difficult. Or, English is complicated. Well, that’s just a belief. For me English easy, because I’m a native speaker, just like your native language for you is very easy. Tomoe speak Japanese fluently because she’s Japanese, so I might “Japanese is difficult,” and she would say “No, Japanese super easy.” These are just beliefs that come from our experiences. The problem is limiting beliefs limit us. They in fact do limit us. They stop us from
better. They cause a lot of problems for us as students, as learners. have them, too. As I try to learn Japanese, example, I have a lot of these limiting beliefs I realize. think “Oh, Japanese is so difficult.” Japanese is complicated, just look at the system. It’s so different from English. And these beliefs hurt my motivation. lower my energy, and in fact they’re wrong.
They’re not true. does not have to be difficult, it does not have to compli- cated. A small child, even a small American child, could learn Japanese very effortlessly, very easily. And the is, the number one reason is, they don’t have the limiting beliefs. They can sing songs play games and enjoy the language, and they’ll learn it so quickly, easily, they’ll say “Japanese is easy.” Well, it’s the same with English with you. learned in a very painful, difficult way in the past. And so you developed, you created these beliefs in head. English is difficult. English is boring. English is painful. I’m good at English. I’ll never speak excellent English. These are beliefs.
So how do you eliminate these beliefs? Okay, you have these beliefs. know they’re negative, you know they’re not helping you. But we have figure out, how can we get rid of the beliefs? That’s the first step, you have to weaken them. You have to them weaker and weaker and weaker. You have to them down. Well beliefs get stronger from references. And reference just an experience or a memory. Sometimes it’s just something you imagine, actually. But it’s a specific experience a specific imagination, a specific moment, that makes the belief stronger or weaker. So, example, you have this idea “English is painful and boring.” when you think of this belief, where does it from?

Well, you think of all these past experiences. You think of the time in school where your teacher corrected your mistake and you felt terrible. you think of maybe the bad grades you got on the test all the red marks on your English papers. And start adding more and more and more memories, more of these negative experiences, these references. And if you get enough, you will develop very, strong, deep, powerful belief “English is difficult. English painful. I’m not good at English.” So to weaken these, you just have question the references.

You have to question the experiences. Take the power away from the experiences. an easy way to do that is just to ask questions about them. example, let me ask this question. Your past English schools, were they excellent? Were they just fantastic English with fantastic, amazing, fun, positive English teachers? Did you have a great time every day? Well, know for most of you the answer is no. that’s interesting, so if your schools were not excellent, maybe the was the problem. Maybe it’s not you. Maybe your is not great because you did not go to schools. And did those schools that you went to, or the books you used, did they proven methods? Did they use research-based methods? Did they know a lot about the research about learning, English teaching? Did they only use the best methods? Or they just use the textbook that everybody else uses?
Well, know from my experience as a teacher, most schools just the same textbooks. They don’t know why. Maybe the tells them “We must use this book.” But they’re choosing the very, very best methods. They’re not choosing the very, very best books. And maybe the reason you believe English is difficult is because you used methods in the past, or your teachers did. Maybe you think English is boring in the past you used boring methods. You went boring schools. You had boring teachers. Maybe English isn’t problem. Maybe it was these past experiences. Maybe it was the way you did or where you did it. Ask yourself these questions. Think about them in detail. Weaken your limiting beliefs. your limiting beliefs. Another question, in school did you learn deeply? For example, did you take chapter in your book and learn it for a long time so that you totally mastered it, that you knew it completely, 100% and never forgot it? not, most schools I have seen and the ones have taught in, it’s quite the opposite. The teachers go very, very, very quickly. You learn one in your book, boom, after one week on to the one, and the next one. Each chapter has so new words, so much new grammar.
For example, my experience with in high school and university, I took Spanish, I’ve a total of maybe two years of Spanish, but forgot it all. Because we never learned deeply. They tried to make us learn as many words as possible, lot of words, a lot of words, a lot of grammar, very, fast. And then, of course, I forgot everything. How about you? Did you deeply in your schools? If not, maybe that was one of the problems. Maybe English feels because you never learned deeply. Maybe English is not the problem.
Finally, did you learn a grammar translation method? Did you study a lot of rules? Did you take a lot of tests? Did feel good about that? Again, maybe the method was problem. Maybe the school is the problem, not English. So think about these questions and think about them day. Think about them a lot, especially this week as you listen Lesson Number 4. I want you to think about these again and again and again. And really be honest about it. And start to these limiting beliefs. Get rid of them. They’re wrong. English is not difficult. English not painful. English is not boring. It’s only a belief. It’s a past experience. You can change that now and in future. So let’s do that.

Let’s talk now about empowering beliefs, positive side. So to empower, the verb, to empower means to make stronger. It means to power to another person. Or in this case, it means the give you power. An empowering belief is a belief makes you feel powerful, that gives you power. That’s kind of beliefs you want and you need to choose them. You must decide which beliefs will you stronger. For example, here’s an empowering belief. You can replace old limiting belief, add this one instead. You can say “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” that’s what all of the scientific research shows, our brain naturally learns languages. It designed to learn language. It should be easy. It be effortless. It should feel good. You learned your language that way. It wasn’t difficult was it? English was easy for me to learn, I did it in a totally natural way. And the more naturally I tried learn Japanese, for example, or Spanish, the easier it feels. So this a new belief and you should write it down, think about it. down this idea, this belief “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” Think it every day. Decide to choose that belief. Here’s belief you might decide to choose “English can be and effortless.”

English can be fun and effortless. That’s empowering belief and it’s also true. You can think of a of examples for this. Some of these mini-stories you’re to, right? They’re fun. They’re stupid, sometimes. They’re crazy, sometimes. But they’re not serious. English be fun and effortless. That’s an empowering belief you want choose and you want to remember it every day.

And to make beliefs stronger, you need experiences. Remember, you need references, you need examples that the belief. So I’m going to give you some examples and you can find more. Go people who speak English very well. Or maybe even have learned another language very well. I’ll give you one my favorite examples, Steve Kaufman of The Linguist speaks, believe, twelve languages now. I want you to find people and look at their beliefs. I’ll tell you some his beliefs because he’s a friend, I’ve talked to him a number times, and Steve believes, for example, that language learning is and effortless. That’s his belief. He’s a native English speaker, speaks Cantonese, he speaks Mandarin, he speaks Japanese, he speaks Russian. These all, supposedly, difficult languages. For him they’re not difficult. They’re easy and effortless. That’s a strong belief he has.

Another belief he has is that you must learn language and you must focus on meaning. So in other words, he doesn’t on the grammar. He’s not focusing on boring textbooks. He’s reading interesting things that he enjoys. He’s listening to things that he enjoys. So, for him, language learning is interesting. What’s really interesting for me is that are the same beliefs that all of my best have. They all have these same ideas. The best students, the ones who the fastest, the ones who have the best test scores, ones with the best speaking, they all believe these things. all believe that English is fun, interesting and effortless. They all believe that learning is natural. They all believe that they should focus the meaning, not on the grammar and the little of the language. So if you want to be like these successful people, need to think like them. You need to have the same beliefs as them.
So here’s I want you to do. Here’s your homework. This is the last thing, the last part this lesson. What I want you to do is write down two, three, four empowering beliefs, that give you power about English. Maybe “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” Maybe “English be fun and effortless.” Maybe “I love English.” I don’t know, down, two, three, four empowering beliefs about English. And day you’re going to do an incantation. That’s a good word, that’s new word, incantation.
An incantation is a phrase or sentence that you say and again. It has almost a magic idea, it comes from magic. An is a magical sentence. It’s a sentence, you say the sentence something will happen. That’s where comes from. But for us an incantation is just a belief you going to repeat again and again and again every day.So here’s you’re going to do. For example “English can be and effortless.” You’re going to say that out loud day while you’re walking along and you’re doing your posture. And you’re and you’re smiling. Well, you’re going to add one thing. As you walk, as you’re getting ready for the lesson, you’re going repeat this out loud. You’re going to say “English be fun and effortless.” You’re going to say it some emotion. Say it with feeling so you’re smiling, you’re deep, you’re moving your body, you have good posture and now you’re also saying these beliefs. English can be fun and effortless. You repeat it again. English can fun and effortless. And then you say it again. English can fun and effortless.

You can do this in your room and its fine. can do it outside and make everyone look at you and you’re crazy. Why not? It’s better than feeling powerless, right? It’s better than being bored. I you will learn so much faster if you do this. So do these incantations every day just before do a lesson. Get your body strong, peak emotional state, and then say these incantations. English can fun and effortless. English can be fun and effortless. your body, your mind, your beliefs, they’re all together, very strong. Then you’re to learn.

Okay, that is the end of the story for “Beliefs.”