Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

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

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

You have question the experiences. Take the power away from the experiences. And easy way to do that is just to ask about them. For example, let me ask this question. past English 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 know most of you the answer is no. So that’s interesting, so if your schools were not excellent, maybe the was the problem. Maybe it’s not you. Maybe your is not great because you did not go to schools. And did those schools that you went to, the books you used, did they use proven methods? Did they research-based methods? Did they know a lot about the research English learning, English teaching? Did they only use the methods? Or did they just use the textbook that else uses?
Well, I know from my experience as teacher, most schools just use the same textbooks. They 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 used difficult methods the past, or your teachers did. Maybe you think English is boring because in the you used boring methods. You went to boring schools. You 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 yourself these questions. Think about in detail. Weaken your limiting beliefs. Challenge your limiting beliefs. Another question, in school did learn deeply? For example, did you take one chapter in your book learn it for a long time so that you totally mastered it, so that you it completely, 100% and never forgot it? Probably not, schools I have seen and the ones I have taught in, it’s the opposite. The teachers go very, very, very quickly. You learn chapter in your book, boom, after one week on the next one, and the next one. Each chapter has so many 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 all. Because we never learned deeply. They just tried to make us learn many words as possible, a lot of words, a lot of words, lot of grammar, very, very fast. And then, of course, I everything. How about you? Did you learn deeply in schools? If not, maybe that was one of the problems. Maybe English feels difficult because you learned deeply. Maybe English is not the problem.
Finally, did you learn with a grammar translation method? you study a lot of grammar rules? Did you a lot of tests? Did you feel good about that? Again, maybe the method was problem. Maybe the school is the problem, not English. So about these questions and think about them every day. Think about them a lot, especially this as you listen to Lesson Number 4. I want you to think about these questions again again and again. And really be honest about it. And to destroy these limiting beliefs. Get rid of them. They’re wrong. English is not difficult. English not painful. English is not boring. It’s only a belief. It’s only a past experience. You can change that 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 make stronger. It means to 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 and you 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 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 to learn language. It should be easy. It should be effortless. It should feel good. learned your native language that way. It wasn’t difficult was it? English was easy for to learn, because I did it in a totally natural way. And the more naturally I tried learn Japanese, for example, or Spanish, the easier it feels. So this is a new belief and you should it down, think about it. Write down this idea, this belief “My brain is a language learning 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 belief it’s also true. You can think of a lot examples for 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 it day.

And to make these beliefs stronger, you need experiences. Remember, need references, you need examples that prove the belief. I’m going to give you some examples and you can find more. Go people who speak English very well. Or maybe even that 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 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, Steve believes, for example, that language learning is easy and effortless. That’s belief. He’s a native English speaker, he speaks Cantonese, he speaks Mandarin, he speaks Japanese, 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 learn naturally and you must focus on meaning. So in other words, he doesn’t focus the 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, learning is interesting. What’s really interesting for me is that these are the same beliefs 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 best test scores, the with the best speaking, they all believe these things. They all believe English is fun, interesting and effortless. They all believe that language is natural. They all believe that they should focus on the meaning, not on grammar and the little pieces of the language. So if you want to be like these successful people, need to think like them. You need to have the beliefs as them.
So here’s what I want to do. Here’s your homework. This is the last thing, last part of this lesson. What I want you do is write down two, three, four empowering beliefs, beliefs that you power about English. Maybe “My brain is a natural learning machine.” Maybe “English can be fun and effortless.” Maybe “I love English.” don’t know, write down, two, three, four empowering beliefs English. And every day you’re going to do an incantation. That’s a word, that’s a new word, incantation.
An incantation a phrase or sentence that you say again and again. It has almost a magic idea, it comes 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 is just a belief you are going to repeat again and again 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 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. you walk, as you’re getting ready for the lesson, you’re going to repeat 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 your body, you have good posture and now you’re also saying these strong beliefs. English can be fun effortless. You repeat it again. English can be fun and effortless. And then you say it again. can be fun and effortless.

You can do this in your room and its fine. can do it outside and make everyone look at you and think you’re crazy. not? It’s better than feeling powerless, right? It’s better than being bored. I promise will learn so much faster if you do this. So do these every day just before you do a lesson. Get body strong, peak emotional state, and then say these incantations. English be fun and effortless. English can be fun and effortless. your body, your mind, your beliefs, they’re all together, very strong. you’re ready to learn.

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