Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

Beliefs are 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 beliefs. Limiting and empowering.
Let’s talk about limiting beliefs first. limiting means, limit is something that stops you. It’s a boundary. It stops you from going ahead. So a limiting belief is a belief stops you from improving, a belief that stops you from getting better. And I’d say most English have limiting beliefs and many English students have very strong beliefs. I call these beliefs English trauma and I got that from a few of my Japanese students. They would tell me “AJ, can’t speak English well because I 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 mean is that they had very negative, painful experiences with English in the past. In other words, when were in school in English classes, even as adults to other English schools, they had very negative experiences. And these negative experiences have created some very negative beliefs, some very limiting beliefs. example, they say “I am not good at English.” Well, that’s belief. It may be true, it may not be true. it’s an opinion, it’s a belief that they have.
belief, a very common belief, English is difficult. Or, is complicated. Well, that’s just a belief. For me English easy, because I’m a native speaker, just like your native for you is very easy. Tomoe can speak Japanese because she’s Japanese, so I might say “Japanese is difficult,” and would say “No, Japanese is super easy.” These are just that come from our experiences. The problem is these limiting beliefs limit us. They in fact do us. They stop us from
getting better. They cause a lot of problems for us students, as learners. I have them, too. As I try to learn Japanese, example, I have a 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 my motivation. They lower my energy, and in fact they’re wrong.
They’re true. Japanese does not have to be difficult, it does not to be compli- cated. A small child, even a small 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 play games and enjoy the language, and they’ll learn it quickly, so easily, they’ll say “Japanese is easy.” Well, it’s same with English with you. You learned in a very painful, way in the past. And so you developed, you these beliefs in your head. English is difficult. English boring. English is painful. I’m not good at English. I’ll never speak excellent English. These just beliefs.
So 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 out, how can we get rid of the limiting beliefs? That’s first step, you have to weaken them. You have make them weaker and weaker and weaker. You have cut them down. Well beliefs get stronger from references. And reference just an experience or a memory. Sometimes it’s just something you imagine, actually. it’s a specific experience or a specific imagination, a specific moment, that makes the stronger or weaker. So, for example, you have this “English is painful and boring.” And when you think of belief, where does it come from?

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

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

Let’s talk now empowering beliefs, the positive side. So to empower, the verb, to means to make stronger. It means to give power to another person. Or in case, it means the beliefs give you power. An belief is a belief that makes you feel powerful, gives you power. That’s the kind of beliefs you want and need to choose them. You must decide which beliefs will make you stronger. For example, here’s an belief. You can replace your old limiting belief, add this one instead. You can say “My brain a natural language learning machine.” Because that’s what all of scientific research shows, our brain naturally learns languages. It designed to learn language. It should be 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 did it in a totally natural way. And the more I tried 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.” Think about 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 belief 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 belief you want to choose and you want to remember every day.

And to make these beliefs stronger, you 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 speak English well. Or maybe even that have learned another language very well. I’ll you one of my favorite examples, Steve Kaufman of The speaks, I believe, twelve languages now. I want you to these people and look at their beliefs. I’ll tell some of his beliefs because he’s a friend, I’ve talked him a number of times, and Steve believes, for example, that language learning is easy and effortless. That’s belief. He’s a native English speaker, he speaks Cantonese, he Mandarin, he speaks 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. So in other words, 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, him, language learning is interesting. What’s really interesting for me is these are the same beliefs that all of my best have. They all have these same ideas. The best students, the who learn the fastest, the ones who have the best test scores, the ones with the speaking, they all believe these things. They all believe that is fun, interesting and effortless. They all believe that language is natural. They all believe that they should focus the meaning, not on the grammar and the little pieces of the language. So if you to be like these successful people, you need to like them. You need to have the same beliefs them.
So here’s what I want you to do. Here’s your homework. This is the last thing, the part of this lesson. What I want you to do is down two, three, four empowering beliefs, beliefs that give you power about English. Maybe “My brain is natural language learning machine.” Maybe “English can be fun and effortless.” Maybe “I love English.” don’t know, write down, two, three, four empowering beliefs about English. And day you’re going to do an incantation. That’s a good word, that’s a new word, incantation.
incantation is a phrase or sentence that you say again and again. It has almost a magic idea, comes from magic. An incantation is a magical sentence. It’s a sentence, say the sentence something will happen. That’s where it from. But for us an incantation 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 “English can be fun and effortless.” You’re going to that out loud every 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 the lesson, you’re going repeat this 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 you’re smiling, you’re breathing deep, you’re moving your body, you have good posture and now you’re saying these strong beliefs. English can be fun and effortless. You repeat again. English can be fun and effortless. And then you say again. English can be fun and effortless.

You can do in your room and its fine. You can do 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. promise you will learn so much faster if you do this. So do these every day just before you do a lesson. Get your body strong, peak state, and then 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, is the end of the main story for “Beliefs.”