Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

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

Well, you think of all these past experiences. You think the time in middle school where your teacher corrected your mistake and felt terrible. And 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, negative references. And if you get enough, you will develop a very, strong, deep, belief “English is difficult. English is painful. I’m not at English.” So to weaken these, you just have question the references.

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

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

English can be fun and effortless. That’s empowering belief and it’s also true. You can think of a lot of examples this. Some of these mini-stories you’re listening to, right? They’re fun. They’re stupid, sometimes. They’re crazy, sometimes. But they’re serious. English can be fun and effortless. That’s an empowering you want to choose and you want to remember every day.

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

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

You can do this in your room and its fine. You 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 promise you will learn much faster if you do this. So do these incantations every day just before you do a lesson. 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, strong. Then you’re ready to learn.

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