Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

Beliefs are another important part managing your psychology, of strengthening your psychology so that you will English, or anything in fact, much faster. And there are two kinds of beliefs to general of beliefs. Limiting and empowering.
Let’s talk about limiting beliefs first. Now means, limit is something that stops you. It’s like boundary. It stops you from going ahead. So a belief is a belief that stops you from improving, a belief that stops you getting better. And I’d say most English students have limiting beliefs and many English students very strong limiting beliefs. I call these beliefs English trauma and 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.”
What is English trauma? is that, what are they talking about? Well, trauma means kind of injury, some kind of hurt. Emotional hurt, emotional hurt. So what they mean is that they had some very negative, painful experiences with English the past. In other words, when they were in in English classes, even as adults going to other schools, they had very negative experiences. And all these experiences have created some very negative beliefs, some very limiting beliefs. For example, they say “I am not at English.” Well, that’s a belief. It may be true, it may be true. But it’s an opinion, it’s a belief that they have.
Another belief, a common belief, English is difficult. Or, English is complicated. Well, that’s just belief. For me English very easy, because I’m a native speaker, like your native language for you is very easy. Tomoe can Japanese fluently because she’s Japanese, so I might say “Japanese difficult,” and she would say “No, Japanese is super easy.” These are just that come from our experiences. The problem is these limiting limit us. They in fact do limit us. They stop us from
getting better. cause a lot of problems for us as students, as learners. I them, too. As I try to learn Japanese, for example, have a lot of these limiting beliefs I realize. I “Oh, Japanese is so difficult.” Japanese is complicated, just at the writing 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. Japanese does not have to be difficult, does not have to be compli- cated. A small child, a small American child, could learn Japanese very effortlessly, easily. And the reason is, the number one reason is, don’t have the limiting beliefs. They can sing songs and play games and the language, and they’ll learn it so quickly, so easily, they’ll “Japanese is easy.” Well, it’s the same with English you. You learned in a very painful, difficult way in the past. And 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 excellent English. These are just beliefs.
So how do eliminate these beliefs? Okay, you have these beliefs. You know they’re negative, you know they’re not helping you. we have to figure out, how can we get rid of the limiting beliefs? That’s first step, you have to weaken them. You have to make them weaker 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 specific experience or a specific imagination, a specific moment, that the belief stronger or weaker. So, for example, you this idea “English is painful and boring.” And when you think of this belief, where does it from?

Well, you think of all these past experiences. You think the time in middle school where your teacher corrected mistake and you felt terrible. And you think of maybe the grades you got on the test or all the red on your English 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. 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 an way to do that is just to ask questions about them. For example, let ask this question. Your past English schools, were they excellent? Were they just fantastic English with fantastic, amazing, fun, positive English teachers? Did you have a great every day? Well, I know for most of you the answer is no. that’s interesting, so if your schools were not excellent, 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, did they use proven methods? Did use research-based methods? Did they know a lot about the research about English learning, English teaching? Did only use the best methods? Or did they just use the textbook everybody else uses?
Well, I know from my experience as a teacher, most schools just 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, very best books. And so the reason you believe English is difficult is because used difficult methods in the past, or your teachers did. you think English is boring because in the past you used boring methods. You to boring schools. You had boring teachers. Maybe English isn’t the problem. 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 limiting beliefs. Challenge your limiting beliefs. question, in school did you learn deeply? For example, did take one chapter in your book and learn it for a long so that you totally mastered it, so that you it completely, 100% and never forgot it? Probably not, schools I have seen and the ones I have taught in, it’s quite opposite. The teachers go very, very, very quickly. You one chapter in your book, boom, after one week on the next one, and the next 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 Spanish, but I forgot it all. Because we never deeply. They just tried to make us learn as many words as possible, a lot of words, lot of words, a lot of grammar, very, very fast. And then, of course, I forgot everything. about you? Did you learn deeply in your schools? If not, maybe that one of the problems. Maybe English feels difficult because you learned deeply. Maybe English is not the problem.
Finally, did you learn with a grammar method? Did you study a lot of grammar rules? Did you take a lot tests? Did you feel good about that? Again, maybe the method was the problem. Maybe school is the problem, not English. So think about these and think about them every day. Think about them a lot, this week as you listen to Lesson Number 4. want you to think about these questions again and again again. And really be honest about it. And start destroy these limiting beliefs. Get rid 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 now and in the future. So let’s do that.

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

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

And to make beliefs stronger, you 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 maybe even that have learned language very well. I’ll give you one of my examples, Steve Kaufman of The Linguist speaks, I believe, languages now. I want you to find these people and at their beliefs. I’ll tell you some of his beliefs because he’s friend, I’ve talked to him a number of times, and believes, for example, that language learning 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 belief he has.

Another belief he has is that you must learn language naturally 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, for him, learning is interesting. What’s really interesting for me is that these are the same beliefs that of my best students have. They all have these same ideas. The best students, ones who learn the fastest, the ones who have the best test scores, the ones the best speaking, they all believe these things. They believe that English is fun, interesting and effortless. They all believe language learning is natural. They all believe that they should focus on the meaning, not on grammar and the little pieces of the language. So if you want to like these successful people, you need to think like them. You need have the same beliefs as them.
So here’s I want you to do. Here’s your homework. This is last thing, the last part of this lesson. What I want you to is write down two, three, four empowering beliefs, beliefs give you power about English. Maybe “My brain is natural language learning machine.” Maybe “English can be fun effortless.” Maybe “I love English.” I don’t know, write down, two, three, four 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 phrase or sentence that you say again and again. It almost a magic idea, it comes from magic. An incantation is a magical sentence. It’s a sentence, you the sentence something will happen. That’s where it comes from. for us an incantation is just a belief you going to repeat again and again and again every day.So here’s you’re going to do. For example “English can be fun effortless.” You’re going to say that out loud every day you’re walking along and you’re doing your posture. And you’re breathing you’re smiling. Well, you’re going to add one more thing. you walk, as you’re getting ready for the lesson, you’re going to repeat out loud. You’re going to say “English can be fun effortless.” You’re going to say it with some emotion. 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 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 than being bored. I promise you will learn so much faster you do this. So do these incantations every day just before you a lesson. Get your body strong, peak emotional state, and then these incantations. English can be fun and effortless. English can be fun and effortless. your body, your mind, your beliefs, they’re all together, very strong. Then you’re to learn.

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