Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

Beliefs are another important of managing your psychology, of strengthening your psychology so that you will English, or anything in fact, much faster. And there two kinds of beliefs to general categories of beliefs. and empowering.
Let’s talk about limiting beliefs first. Now limiting means, limit something that stops you. It’s like a boundary. It stops you from going ahead. So limiting belief is a belief that stops you from improving, a belief stops you from getting better. And I’d say most English students have beliefs 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. would tell me “AJ, I can’t speak English well because I English trauma.”
What is English trauma? What is that, are they talking about? Well, trauma means some kind of injury, some kind of hurt. hurt, deep emotional hurt. So what they mean is that they some very negative, painful experiences with English in the past. In other words, when they were in school in classes, even as adults going to other English schools, they had very negative experiences. And these negative experiences have created some very negative beliefs, very limiting beliefs. For example, they say “I am good at English.” Well, that’s a belief. It may be true, it not be true. But it’s an opinion, it’s a belief they have.
Another belief, a very common belief, English is difficult. Or, 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 very easy. Tomoe can speak Japanese fluently she’s Japanese, so I might say “Japanese is difficult,” and would say “No, Japanese is super easy.” These are just beliefs come from our experiences. The problem is these limiting beliefs limit us. They in fact do limit us. stop us from
getting better. They cause a lot of problems for us students, as learners. I have them, too. As I try learn Japanese, for example, I have a lot of these limiting I realize. I think “Oh, Japanese is so difficult.” is complicated, just look at the writing system. It’s so different English. And these beliefs hurt my motivation. They lower my energy, in fact they’re wrong.
They’re not true. Japanese does not have to be difficult, it not have to be compli- cated. A small child, even a American child, could learn Japanese very effortlessly, very easily. And the reason is, the number one reason is, don’t have the limiting beliefs. They can sing songs and play games and enjoy the language, they’ll learn it so quickly, so easily, they’ll say “Japanese easy.” Well, it’s the same with English with you. You learned in very painful, difficult way in the past. And so you developed, you created these beliefs in your head. is difficult. English is boring. English 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, you 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 have weaken them. You have to make them weaker and weaker and weaker. You have cut them down. Well beliefs get stronger from references. And is just an experience or a memory. Sometimes it’s just something you imagine, actually. But it’s a specific or a specific imagination, a specific moment, that makes the belief stronger or weaker. So, example, you have this idea “English is painful and boring.” And when you think of this belief, does it come from?

Well, you think of all these past experiences. think of the time in middle school where your teacher corrected your mistake and felt terrible. And you think of maybe the bad grades you got on the test or all red marks on your English papers. And you start adding more and more and memories, more of these negative experiences, these negative references. And if get enough, you will develop a very, strong, deep, powerful belief “English is difficult. English is painful. I’m good at English.” So to weaken these, you just have to question the references.

You have question the experiences. Take the power away from the experiences. And an easy to do that is 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, if your schools were not excellent, maybe the school was the problem. Maybe it’s not you. Maybe your is not great because you did not go to great schools. And did those schools that went to, or the books you used, did they proven methods? Did they use research-based methods? Did they know a about the research about English learning, English teaching? Did they only use the best methods? Or did they use the textbook that everybody else uses?
Well, know from my experience as a teacher, most schools just use the same textbooks. don’t know why. Maybe the boss tells them “We must use this book.” they’re not choosing the very, very best methods. They’re not choosing the very, best books. And so maybe the reason you believe English is is because you used difficult methods in the past, or teachers did. Maybe you think English is boring because in past you used boring methods. You went to boring schools. You had boring teachers. Maybe English isn’t the problem. it was these past experiences. Maybe it was the way did it or where you did it. Ask yourself questions. Think about them in detail. Weaken your limiting beliefs. your limiting beliefs. Another question, in school did you learn deeply? For example, you take one chapter in your book and learn for a long time so that you totally mastered it, that you knew it completely, 100% and never forgot it? Probably not, most I have seen and the ones I have taught in, it’s quite the opposite. teachers go very, very, very quickly. You learn one in your book, boom, after one week on to the next one, and the one. Each chapter has so many new words, so much grammar.
For example, my experience with Spanish in high school and university, I Spanish, I’ve had a total of maybe two years of Spanish, but forgot it all. Because we never learned deeply. They just tried to make 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 everything. How about you? Did you learn deeply in your schools? not, maybe that was one of the problems. Maybe English feels difficult because you learned deeply. Maybe English is not the problem.
Finally, did learn with a grammar translation method? Did you study lot of grammar rules? Did you take a lot of tests? Did 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 them every day. Think about them a lot, especially week as you listen to Lesson Number 4. I want you to think about these questions again and and again. And really be honest about it. And start to these limiting beliefs. Get rid of them. They’re wrong. English is not difficult. English is painful. English is not boring. It’s only a belief. It’s only a past experience. You can change now and 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 another person. Or in this case, it means the beliefs give you power. An belief is a belief that makes you feel powerful, that gives you power. That’s the kind of you want and you need to choose them. You must decide which beliefs will you stronger. For example, here’s an empowering belief. You can replace your limiting belief, add this one instead. You can say “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” that’s what all of the scientific research shows, our naturally learns languages. It is designed to learn language. It be easy. It should be effortless. It should feel good. You learned native language that way. It wasn’t difficult was it? was easy for me to learn, because I did in a totally natural way. And the more naturally I tried learn Japanese, for example, or Spanish, the easier it feels. this is a new belief and you should write down, think about it. Write down this idea, this belief “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” about it every day. Decide to choose that belief. Here’s another belief you might decide to choose “English can fun and effortless.”

English can be fun and effortless. That’s an empowering belief and it’s also true. can 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. 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 the belief. So I’m going to give you some examples and you can find more. find people who speak English very well. Or maybe even have learned another language very well. I’ll give you one of my examples, Steve Kaufman of The Linguist speaks, I believe, twelve now. I want you to find these people and look at their beliefs. I’ll tell some of his beliefs because he’s a friend, I’ve to him a number of times, and Steve believes, for example, that language learning is and effortless. That’s his belief. He’s a native English speaker, he speaks Cantonese, he speaks Mandarin, speaks Japanese, he 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 language naturally and you must on meaning. So in other words, he doesn’t focus on the grammar. He’s not focusing on textbooks. He’s reading interesting things that he enjoys. He’s listening to interesting things he enjoys. So, for him, language learning is interesting. What’s really interesting for me is that 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 with the best speaking, they all believe these things. They all that English is fun, interesting and effortless. They all believe that language learning is natural. They believe that they should focus on the meaning, not the grammar and the little pieces of the language. if 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 want you to do. Here’s homework. This is the last thing, the last part of this lesson. What want you to do is write down two, three, four empowering beliefs, beliefs that you power about English. Maybe “My brain is a language learning machine.” Maybe “English can be fun and effortless.” “I love English.” I don’t know, write down, two, three, empowering beliefs about English. And every day you’re going to do incantation. That’s a good word, that’s a new word, incantation.
An incantation is a or sentence that you say again and again. It almost a magic idea, it comes from magic. An is a magical sentence. It’s a sentence, you say the sentence will happen. That’s where it comes from. But for us incantation is just a belief you are going to repeat and again and again every day.So here’s what you’re going do. For example “English can 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 going add one more thing. As you walk, as you’re getting ready the lesson, you’re going to repeat this out loud. You’re going to “English can be fun and effortless.” You’re going to say it with some emotion. it with feeling so you’re smiling, you’re breathing deep, you’re moving body, you have good posture and now you’re also saying these strong beliefs. can be fun and effortless. You repeat it again. English be fun and effortless. And then you say it again. English be fun and effortless.

You can do this in room and its fine. You can do it outside make everyone look at you and think you’re crazy. Why not? It’s better than feeling powerless, right? It’s than being bored. I promise you will learn so much faster if you this. So do these incantations every day just before you do a lesson. your 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, strong. Then you’re ready to learn.

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