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 that you will learn English, or anything in fact, much faster. there are two kinds 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 a boundary. It stops you from going ahead. So a limiting belief is a that stops you from 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 beliefs. I call these beliefs English trauma and I got that name from a few my Japanese students. They would tell me “AJ, I can’t English well because I have English trauma.”
What English trauma? What is that, what are they talking about? Well, trauma means some of injury, some kind of hurt. Emotional hurt, deep emotional hurt. So they mean is that they had some very negative, painful experiences with in the past. In other words, when they were in school in English classes, as adults going to other English schools, they had very experiences. And all these negative experiences have created some very beliefs, some very limiting beliefs. For example, they say “I not good 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 they have.
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 just beliefs that come from our experiences. The problem these limiting beliefs limit us. They in fact do limit us. stop us from
getting better. They cause a lot of problems us as students, as learners. I have them, too. I try to learn Japanese, for example, I have a lot these limiting beliefs I realize. I think “Oh, Japanese is so difficult.” Japanese is complicated, just look the writing system. It’s so different from English. And beliefs hurt my motivation. They lower my energy, and fact they’re wrong.
They’re not true. Japanese does not have be difficult, it does not have to be compli- cated. small child, even a small American child, could learn Japanese very effortlessly, very easily. the reason is, the number one reason is, they don’t the limiting beliefs. They can sing songs and play games and the language, and they’ll learn it so quickly, so easily, they’ll say “Japanese is easy.” Well, it’s the with 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 difficult. English is boring. English is painful. I’m not good at English. I’ll never excellent English. These are just beliefs.
So how do eliminate these beliefs? Okay, you have these beliefs. You know they’re negative, know they’re not helping you. But we have to figure out, how we get rid of the limiting beliefs? That’s the step, you have to weaken them. You have to make them weaker and weaker 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 imagination, a specific moment, that makes the belief stronger weaker. So, for 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. think of the time in middle school where your teacher your mistake and you felt terrible. And you think of the bad grades you got on the test or 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 very, strong, deep, powerful belief “English is difficult. English is painful. I’m not good at English.” So to these, you just have 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. Your past schools, were they excellent? Were they just fantastic English schools fantastic, amazing, fun, positive English teachers? Did you have a great time every day? Well, I for most of you the answer 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 because 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 research about English learning, English teaching? Did they only use best methods? Or did they just use the textbook that everybody else uses?
Well, know from my experience as a teacher, most schools use the same textbooks. They don’t know why. Maybe boss tells them “We must use this book.” But they’re not choosing the very, very best methods. They’re not the very, very best books. And so maybe the you believe English is difficult is because you used difficult methods in the past, or your teachers did. 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. it was these past experiences. Maybe it was the way you did it or where you it. Ask yourself these questions. Think about them in detail. your limiting beliefs. Challenge your limiting beliefs. Another question, in did you learn deeply? For example, did you take one chapter in 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. teachers go very, very, very quickly. You learn one chapter 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 Spanish in school and university, I took Spanish, I’ve had a total maybe two years of Spanish, but I forgot it all. Because we never learned deeply. They tried to make us learn as many words as possible, a lot of words, a lot words, a lot 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 one of the problems. Maybe English feels difficult because you learned deeply. Maybe English is not the problem.
Finally, you learn with a grammar translation method? Did you study a lot of grammar rules? Did you a lot of tests? Did you feel good about that? Again, maybe the method was the problem. Maybe the school the problem, not English. So think about these questions and think about them every day. Think them a lot, especially this week as you listen to Lesson Number 4. I you to think about these questions again and again and again. And really honest about it. And start to destroy these limiting beliefs. Get of them. They’re wrong. English is not difficult. English is not painful. English is not boring. It’s a belief. It’s only a past experience. You can change that now and in future. So let’s do that.

Let’s talk now about empowering beliefs, the side. So to empower, the verb, to empower means to make stronger. It means give power to another 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 you need to choose them. You must decide which beliefs make you stronger. For example, here’s an empowering belief. You can replace your old limiting belief, this one instead. You can say “My brain is a natural learning machine.” Because that’s what all of the scientific research shows, brain naturally learns 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 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 feels. So this is a new belief and you should write it down, think about it. Write down idea, this belief “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” about it every day. Decide to choose that belief. Here’s belief you might decide to choose “English can be fun and effortless.”

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

And to make these beliefs stronger, you need experiences. Remember, you need references, need examples that prove the belief. So I’m going to give you some and you can find more. Go find people who speak English very well. maybe even that have learned another language very well. I’ll give you of my favorite examples, Steve Kaufman of The Linguist speaks, I believe, twelve now. I want you to find these people and at their beliefs. I’ll tell you some of his beliefs he’s a friend, I’ve talked to him a number times, and Steve believes, for example, that language learning easy and effortless. That’s his belief. He’s a native English speaker, he 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 very strong he has.

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

You can do this in your and its 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 being 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 body strong, emotional state, and then say these incantations. English can fun and effortless. English can be fun and effortless. Now your body, your mind, your beliefs, they’re together, very strong. Then you’re ready to learn.

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