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 your psychology so that you learn English, or anything in fact, much faster. And are 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 a belief is a belief that stops you from improving, a belief that stops you from better. And I’d say most English students have limiting beliefs and many English students have very limiting beliefs. I call these beliefs English trauma and I got that name from few of my Japanese students. They would tell me “AJ, can’t speak English well because I have English trauma.”
What English trauma? What is that, what are they talking about? Well, trauma some kind of injury, some kind of hurt. Emotional hurt, deep hurt. So what they mean is that they had 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, had very negative experiences. And all these negative experiences have created some very negative beliefs, some limiting beliefs. For 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, English is difficult. Or, English is complicated. Well, that’s a 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 because she’s Japanese, so I might say “Japanese is difficult,” and she say “No, Japanese is super easy.” These are just beliefs that from our experiences. The problem is these limiting beliefs limit us. They fact do limit us. They stop us from
getting better. They cause a lot of 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, Japanese so difficult.” Japanese is complicated, just look at the system. It’s so 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 to be compli- cated. A small child, even a American child, could learn Japanese very effortlessly, very easily. And reason is, the number one reason is, they don’t have limiting beliefs. They can sing songs 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. And so developed, you created these beliefs in your head. English is difficult. is boring. English is painful. I’m not good at English. I’ll never speak excellent English. 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 we get rid of the limiting beliefs? That’s the first step, you have to weaken them. You have make them weaker and weaker and weaker. You have to cut them down. beliefs get stronger from references. And reference is just experience or a memory. Sometimes it’s just something you imagine, actually. But it’s a experience or a specific imagination, a specific moment, that the belief stronger or weaker. So, for example, you have idea “English is painful and boring.” And when you think this belief, where does it come from?

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

You have to question the experiences. Take the power away the experiences. And an easy way to do that is just to ask about them. For example, let me ask this question. Your English schools, were they excellent? Were they just fantastic schools with fantastic, amazing, fun, positive English teachers? Did you have a time every day? Well, I know for most of you the answer no. So that’s interesting, so if your schools were not excellent, the school was the problem. Maybe it’s not you. Maybe English 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 lot about the research about learning, English teaching? Did they only use the best methods? Or did they just use the textbook everybody else uses?
Well, I know from my experience as a teacher, schools just use the same textbooks. They don’t know why. Maybe boss tells them “We must use this book.” But they’re choosing the very, very best methods. They’re not choosing the very, very best books. And so maybe 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. 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 it completely, 100% and forgot it? Probably not, most schools I have seen and the ones I taught in, it’s quite the opposite. The teachers go very, very, quickly. You learn one chapter in your book, boom, after one week on to the next one, and next one. Each chapter has so many new words, much new grammar.
For example, my experience with Spanish in high school university, I took Spanish, I’ve had a total of two years of Spanish, but I forgot it all. we never learned deeply. They just tried to make learn as many words as possible, a lot of words, lot of words, a lot of grammar, very, very fast. then, of course, I forgot everything. How about you? you learn deeply in your schools? If not, maybe was one of the problems. Maybe English feels difficult because never learned deeply. Maybe English is not the problem.
Finally, did you learn with a grammar translation method? Did study a lot of grammar rules? Did you take a of tests? Did you feel good about that? Again, maybe the method was the problem. Maybe school is the problem, not English. So think about 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 questions again and again and again. And really be about it. And start to destroy these limiting beliefs. Get of them. They’re wrong. English is not difficult. English is painful. English is not boring. It’s only a belief. It’s 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, empower means to make stronger. It means to give power to another person. Or in this case, it the beliefs give you power. An empowering belief is a that makes you feel powerful, that gives you power. That’s the kind of beliefs you want and you to choose them. You must decide which beliefs will you stronger. For example, here’s an empowering belief. You replace your old limiting belief, add this one instead. You can say “My brain is natural language learning machine.” Because that’s what all of the scientific research shows, our brain learns languages. It is designed to learn language. It should be easy. It should be effortless. should feel good. You learned your native language that way. wasn’t difficult was it? English was easy for me to learn, because I did it in a natural way. And the more naturally I tried to 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 that belief. Here’s another belief you might decide to choose “English can be fun effortless.”

English can be fun and effortless. That’s an empowering belief it’s also true. You can think of a lot of for this. Some of these 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 an empowering belief you want to choose you want to remember it 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 examples and you find more. Go find people who speak English very well. Or maybe even that 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 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 is easy and effortless. That’s his belief. He’s a native English speaker, speaks Cantonese, he speaks Mandarin, he 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 he has.

Another belief he has is that you must language naturally and you must focus on meaning. So in other words, he doesn’t on the grammar. He’s not focusing on boring textbooks. He’s 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 these are the same beliefs that all of my best have. They all have these same ideas. The best students, ones who learn the fastest, the ones who have best test scores, the ones with the best speaking, they believe these things. They all believe that English is fun, interesting effortless. They all believe that language learning is natural. They believe that they should focus on the meaning, not on grammar and the little pieces of the language. So you want to be like these successful people, you need to think like them. You to have the same beliefs as them.
So here’s what I want you do. Here’s your homework. This is the last thing, the last part this lesson. What I want you to do is write down two, three, four empowering beliefs, beliefs give you power about English. Maybe “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” Maybe “English be 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 again. It has almost a magic idea, it comes from magic. incantation is a magical sentence. It’s a sentence, you say the sentence something happen. That’s where it comes from. But for us an is just a belief you are going to repeat again again and again every day.So here’s what you’re going to do. For example “English can be fun effortless.” You’re going to say that out loud every while you’re walking along and you’re doing your 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 lesson, you’re going to repeat this out loud. You’re going to say “English can be fun effortless.” You’re going to say it with some emotion. Say it with 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 fun and effortless. And then you say it again. English be fun and effortless.

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

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