Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

Beliefs are another part of managing your psychology, of strengthening your psychology that you will learn English, or anything in fact, faster. And there are two kinds of beliefs to general categories of beliefs. 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 from improving, a belief 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 English and I got that name from a few of Japanese students. They would tell me “AJ, I can’t English well because I have English trauma.”
What is English trauma? What is that, what are they 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, painful experiences with in the past. In other words, when they were in school in classes, even as adults going to other English schools, they very negative experiences. And all these negative experiences have some very negative beliefs, some very limiting beliefs. For example, they “I am not good at English.” Well, that’s a belief. It may true, it may not be true. But it’s an opinion, it’s belief that they have.
Another belief, a very common belief, English is difficult. Or, English complicated. Well, that’s just a belief. For me English very easy, because I’m a native speaker, just your native language for you is very easy. Tomoe can speak Japanese fluently she’s Japanese, so I might say “Japanese is difficult,” she would say “No, Japanese is super easy.” These are just that come from our experiences. The problem is these beliefs limit us. They in fact do limit us. They stop from
getting better. They cause a lot of problems for us as students, 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 is complicated, look at the writing system. It’s so different from English. And these beliefs my motivation. They lower my energy, and in fact they’re wrong.
They’re not true. Japanese does not have to difficult, it does not have to be compli- cated. A small child, even a American child, could learn Japanese very effortlessly, very easily. And the reason is, the number one reason is, don’t have the limiting beliefs. They can sing songs and play games and enjoy language, and they’ll learn it so quickly, so easily, they’ll “Japanese is easy.” Well, it’s the same with English with you. You 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 just beliefs.
So do you eliminate these beliefs? Okay, you have these beliefs. know they’re negative, you know they’re not helping you. 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 weaker and weaker. You have to cut them down. Well beliefs get from references. And reference is just an experience or memory. Sometimes it’s just something you imagine, actually. But it’s a specific or a specific imagination, a specific moment, that makes the belief stronger weaker. So, for example, you have this idea “English is and boring.” And when you think of this belief, where does come from?

Well, you think of all these past experiences. think of the time in middle school where your corrected your mistake and you felt terrible. And you of maybe the bad grades you got on the test or all the red on your English papers. And you start adding more and and 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. is painful. I’m not good at English.” So to weaken these, just have to question the references.

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

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

English can be fun and effortless. That’s an empowering belief and it’s also true. You can of 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 belief you want to 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 and you can find more. Go find people who English very well. Or maybe even that have learned another very well. I’ll give you one of my favorite examples, 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 him a number of times, and believes, for example, that language learning is easy and effortless. That’s his belief. He’s a English speaker, he speaks Cantonese, he speaks Mandarin, he Japanese, he speaks Russian. These are all, supposedly, difficult languages. For they’re not difficult. They’re easy and effortless. That’s a very strong belief has.

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

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