Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

Beliefs are another important part of managing your psychology, of strengthening psychology so 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 limiting beliefs first. Now limiting means, limit is something stops you. It’s like a boundary. It stops you going ahead. So a limiting belief is a belief stops you from improving, a belief that stops you from getting better. And I’d most English students have limiting beliefs and many English students have strong limiting beliefs. I call these beliefs English trauma I got that name from a few of my students. They would tell me “AJ, I can’t speak English well because I have English trauma.”
is English trauma? What is that, what are they talking about? Well, trauma means some kind injury, some kind of hurt. Emotional hurt, deep emotional hurt. So they mean is that they had some very negative, painful experiences with English in the past. In words, when they were in school in English classes, even adults going to other English schools, they had very negative experiences. all 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 a belief. It may be true, may not be 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 native speaker, just like your native language for you very easy. Tomoe can speak Japanese fluently because she’s Japanese, so I might say “Japanese 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 do us. They stop us from
getting better. They cause a lot of for us as students, as 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 complicated, just look at the writing system. It’s so different from English. And beliefs hurt my motivation. They lower my energy, and in they’re wrong.
They’re not true. Japanese does not have to be difficult, it does have to be compli- cated. A small child, even a American child, could learn Japanese very effortlessly, very easily. And the is, the number one reason is, they don’t have the limiting beliefs. They can songs 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 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 is boring. is painful. I’m not good at English. I’ll never speak English. These are just beliefs.
So how do you eliminate beliefs? Okay, you have these beliefs. You know they’re negative, know they’re not helping you. But we have to out, how can we get rid of the limiting beliefs? That’s the first step, have to weaken them. You have to make them weaker and and weaker. You have to cut them down. Well get stronger from references. And reference is just an 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 belief stronger or weaker. So, for example, you have idea “English is painful and boring.” And when you think of this belief, where does 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 red marks on your English papers. And you start adding more and more and more memories, more these negative experiences, these negative references. And if you get enough, you will a very, strong, deep, powerful belief “English is difficult. English is painful. I’m not at English.” So to weaken these, you just have to question references.

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

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

English can be fun and effortless. That’s an belief and it’s also true. You can think of 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. they’re not serious. English can be fun and effortless. That’s empowering belief you want to choose and you want remember it every day.

And to make these beliefs stronger, need experiences. Remember, you need references, you need examples that prove belief. So I’m going to give you some examples and can find more. Go find people who speak English very well. Or 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 languages now. I want you to these people and look at their beliefs. I’ll tell you some of beliefs because he’s a friend, I’ve talked to him number of times, and Steve believes, for example, that learning is easy and effortless. That’s his belief. He’s a native English speaker, he speaks Cantonese, speaks Mandarin, he speaks Japanese, he speaks Russian. These all, supposedly, difficult languages. For him they’re not difficult. They’re easy effortless. That’s a very strong belief he has.

Another he has is that you must learn language naturally and you must focus on meaning. So in words, he doesn’t focus on the grammar. He’s not on boring textbooks. He’s reading interesting things that he enjoys. He’s listening to things that he enjoys. So, for him, language learning interesting. What’s really interesting for me is that these are same beliefs that all of my best students have. They have these same ideas. The best students, the ones who learn the fastest, the ones who the best test scores, the ones with the best speaking, they all believe these things. They all believe English is fun, interesting and effortless. They all believe that language learning natural. They all believe that they should focus on the meaning, 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. You need to the same beliefs as them.
So here’s what I you to do. Here’s your homework. This is the last thing, the last part of lesson. What I want you to do is write two, three, four empowering beliefs, beliefs that give you power English. Maybe “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” Maybe “English can be fun effortless.” Maybe “I love English.” I 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 is phrase or sentence that you say again and again. It almost a 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 you are 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 day 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, you’re getting ready for the lesson, you’re going to 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 so you’re smiling, you’re breathing deep, you’re your 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 fun and effortless. And then you say it again. English can be fun and effortless.

You can 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. promise you will learn so much faster if you do this. do these incantations every day just before you do a lesson. Get your strong, peak emotional state, and then say these incantations. English can be fun effortless. English can be fun and effortless. Now your body, your mind, beliefs, they’re all together, very strong. Then you’re ready learn.

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