Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

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

Well, you think of these past experiences. You think of the time in middle school where your teacher corrected your mistake and felt terrible. And you think of maybe the bad grades you on the test or all the red marks on English papers. And you start adding more and more more memories, more of these negative experiences, these negative references. And if get enough, you will develop a very, strong, deep, powerful belief “English is difficult. English is painful. I’m good at English.” So to weaken these, you just to question the references.

You have to question the experiences. the power away from the experiences. And an easy way to do that just to ask questions about them. For example, let me ask this question. past English schools, were they excellent? Were they just English schools with fantastic, amazing, fun, positive English teachers? you have a great time every day? Well, I know for most of you the is no. So that’s interesting, so if your schools not excellent, maybe the school was the problem. Maybe it’s you. Maybe your English is not great because you did not go to great schools. And did schools that you went to, or the books you used, they use proven methods? Did they use research-based methods? Did know a lot about the research about English learning, English teaching? Did only use the best methods? Or did they just the textbook that everybody else uses?
Well, I know from my as a teacher, most schools just use the same textbooks. They don’t why. Maybe the boss tells them “We must use this book.” they’re not choosing the very, very best methods. They’re not choosing the very, best books. And so maybe the reason you believe English difficult is because you used difficult methods in the past, or your did. Maybe you think English is boring because in the past you used boring methods. You went to schools. You had boring teachers. Maybe English isn’t the problem. Maybe it these past experiences. Maybe it was the way you it 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, you take one chapter in your book and learn it a long time so that you totally mastered it, so that you knew it completely, 100% and forgot it? Probably not, most schools I have seen and the ones I taught in, it’s quite the opposite. The teachers go very, very, very quickly. learn one chapter in your book, boom, after one week on to the next one, the next one. Each chapter has so many new words, 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 just tried to us learn as many words as possible, a lot of words, a lot of words, a lot grammar, very, very fast. And then, of course, I everything. How about you? Did you learn deeply in your schools? 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 grammar rules? Did you take lot of tests? Did you feel good about that? Again, the method was the problem. Maybe the school is the problem, not English. So think about these questions think about them every day. Think about them a lot, especially this week as you listen to Number 4. I want you to think about these questions again and again again. And really be honest about it. And start destroy these limiting beliefs. Get rid of them. They’re wrong. English not difficult. English is not painful. English is not boring. It’s only belief. It’s only a past experience. You can change that now and in the future. So let’s that.

Let’s talk now about empowering beliefs, the positive side. So to empower, verb, to empower means to make stronger. It means give power to another person. Or in this case, it means the give you power. An empowering belief is a belief that makes you feel powerful, that gives power. That’s the kind of beliefs you want and you need to choose them. must decide which beliefs will make you stronger. For example, here’s an empowering belief. You can replace your old belief, add this one instead. You can say “My brain is a natural language machine.” Because that’s what all of the scientific research shows, our brain naturally learns languages. is 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, because I it in a totally natural way. And the more naturally I to learn Japanese, for example, or Spanish, the easier it feels. So this is a new belief and should write it down, think about it. Write down this idea, this belief “My is a natural language learning machine.” Think about it day. Decide to choose that belief. Here’s another belief might decide to choose “English can be fun and effortless.”

English be fun and effortless. That’s an empowering belief and it’s also true. You can think a lot 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 serious. English can be fun and effortless. That’s an empowering belief you want to choose and you to remember it every day.

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

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

You do this in your room and its fine. You can 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 bored. I promise you will learn so much faster if you do this. So do these incantations day just before you do a lesson. Get your strong, peak emotional state, and then say these incantations. English can be and effortless. English can be fun and effortless. Now body, your mind, your beliefs, they’re all together, very strong. Then you’re to learn.

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