Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

Beliefs are another important part of your psychology, of strengthening your psychology so 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. limiting means, limit is something that stops you. It’s a boundary. It stops you from going ahead. So limiting belief is a belief that stops you from improving, a that stops you from getting better. And I’d say most English students have limiting and many English students have very strong limiting beliefs. I call these beliefs trauma and I got that name from a few of my Japanese students. They would me “AJ, I can’t speak English well because I have English trauma.”
is English trauma? What is that, what are they about? Well, trauma means some kind of injury, some kind hurt. Emotional hurt, deep emotional hurt. So what they mean is that they had some negative, painful experiences with English in the past. In other words, when were in school in English classes, even as adults going other English schools, they had very negative experiences. And all 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 true, it may not be true. But it’s an opinion, it’s a belief they have.
Another belief, a very common belief, is difficult. Or, English is complicated. Well, that’s just belief. For me English very easy, because I’m a native speaker, just like native language for you is very easy. Tomoe can speak Japanese fluently because she’s Japanese, so might say “Japanese is difficult,” and she would say “No, Japanese super easy.” These are just beliefs that come from experiences. The problem 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. I have them, too. As try to learn Japanese, for example, I have a of these limiting beliefs I realize. I think “Oh, is so difficult.” Japanese is complicated, just look at the writing system. It’s different from English. And these beliefs hurt my motivation. lower my energy, and in fact they’re wrong.
They’re not true. does not have to be difficult, it does not have be compli- cated. A small child, even a small American child, could Japanese very effortlessly, very easily. And the reason is, the one reason is, they don’t have the limiting beliefs. They can sing and play games and enjoy the language, and they’ll learn it quickly, so easily, they’ll say “Japanese is easy.” Well, it’s the same English with you. You learned in a very painful, difficult way in the past. so you developed, you created these beliefs in your head. English is difficult. English is boring. English 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 figure out, how can we rid of the limiting beliefs? That’s the first step, you to weaken them. You have to make them weaker and weaker weaker. You have to cut them down. Well beliefs get stronger from references. reference is just an experience or a memory. Sometimes it’s just something you imagine, actually. But it’s specific experience or a specific imagination, a specific moment, that makes belief stronger or weaker. So, for example, you have this idea “English is painful and boring.” when you think of this belief, where does it come from?

Well, think of all these past experiences. You think of the time in middle school where teacher corrected your mistake and you felt terrible. And you think of maybe the bad grades got on the test or all the red marks on your English papers. you start adding more and more and more memories, of these negative experiences, these negative references. And if you get enough, you develop a very, strong, deep, powerful belief “English is difficult. 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 to do that is just to ask questions about them. example, let me ask this question. Your past English schools, were they excellent? Were just fantastic English schools with fantastic, amazing, fun, positive English teachers? Did you have great time every day? Well, I know for most you the answer is no. So that’s interesting, so if your schools were not excellent, maybe the school the problem. Maybe it’s not you. Maybe your English is not great you did not go to great schools. And did those that you went to, or the books you used, did use proven methods? Did they 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 use the textbook that everybody else uses?
Well, I know from my as a teacher, most schools just use the same textbooks. They don’t know why. Maybe the tells them “We must use this book.” But they’re not choosing very, very best methods. They’re not choosing the very, best books. And so maybe the reason you believe English is difficult because you used difficult methods in the past, or your teachers did. Maybe you think English is because in the past you used boring methods. You went to schools. You had boring teachers. Maybe English isn’t the problem. Maybe it was these past experiences. it was the way you did it or where you it. Ask yourself these questions. Think about them in detail. Weaken your limiting beliefs. Challenge limiting beliefs. Another question, in school did you learn deeply? example, did you take one chapter in your book and learn for a long time so that you totally mastered it, so that you knew completely, 100% and never forgot it? Probably not, most schools I have seen and ones I have taught in, it’s quite the opposite. The go very, very, very quickly. You learn one chapter in book, boom, after one week on to the next one, the next one. Each chapter has so many new words, much new grammar.
For example, my experience with in high school and university, I took Spanish, I’ve had a of maybe two years of Spanish, but I forgot it all. Because never learned deeply. They just tried to make us as many words as possible, a lot of words, a lot of words, lot of grammar, very, very fast. And then, of course, I forgot everything. How about you? you learn deeply in your schools? If not, maybe that was 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 of 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 and think about them every day. Think about them lot, especially this week as you listen to Lesson Number 4. I want to think about these questions again and again and again. And really be honest about it. start to destroy these limiting beliefs. Get rid of them. They’re wrong. English not difficult. English is not painful. English is not boring. It’s only a belief. It’s a past experience. You can change that now and in the future. let’s do that.

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

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

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

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

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