Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

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

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

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

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

English can be fun and effortless. That’s an empowering 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 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 prove 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 that have learned another very well. I’ll give you one of my favorite examples, Steve Kaufman of The Linguist speaks, I believe, languages now. I want you to find these people and look at their beliefs. I’ll you some of his beliefs because he’s a friend, I’ve to him a number of times, and Steve believes, example, that 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 very strong belief he has.

Another belief he has is that must learn language naturally and you must focus on meaning. in other words, he doesn’t focus on the grammar. He’s not focusing on textbooks. He’s reading interesting things that he enjoys. He’s to interesting things 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. The best students, the who learn the fastest, the ones who have the best scores, the ones with the best speaking, they all believe things. They all believe that English is fun, interesting and effortless. They all that language learning is natural. They all believe that they should focus on the meaning, on the grammar and the little pieces of the language. So if you want to be like these people, you need to think like them. You need to have same beliefs as them.
So here’s what I want you do. Here’s your homework. This is the last thing, the last part of this lesson. What I you to do is write down two, three, four empowering beliefs, beliefs give you power about English. Maybe “My brain is natural language learning machine.” Maybe “English can be fun and effortless.” “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 a or sentence that you say again and again. It 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 are to repeat again and again and again 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 every 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 more thing. As you walk, as you’re getting ready the lesson, you’re going to repeat this out loud. You’re going say “English can be fun and effortless.” You’re going to say it with some emotion. Say with feeling so you’re smiling, you’re breathing deep, you’re your body, you have good posture and now you’re also these strong beliefs. English can be fun and effortless. You repeat it again. can be fun and effortless. And then you 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 being bored. I you will learn so much faster if you do this. So do these incantations every day just before you a lesson. Get your body strong, peak emotional state, and say these incantations. English can be fun and effortless. English can fun and effortless. Now your body, your mind, your beliefs, they’re together, very strong. Then you’re ready to learn.

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