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 that you will learn English, or anything in fact, much faster. And are two kinds of beliefs to general categories of beliefs. Limiting and empowering.
Let’s about limiting beliefs first. Now limiting means, limit is that stops you. It’s like a boundary. It stops from going ahead. So a limiting belief is a belief that stops from improving, a belief that stops you from getting better. I’d say most English students have limiting beliefs and many students have very strong limiting beliefs. I call these beliefs English trauma I got that name from a few of my Japanese students. They tell me “AJ, I can’t speak English well because I have English trauma.”
What English trauma? What is that, what are they talking 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 very negative, painful with English in the past. In other words, when they in school in English classes, even as adults going to English schools, they had very negative experiences. And all these negative experiences have some very negative beliefs, some very limiting beliefs. For example, they “I am not good at English.” Well, that’s a belief. It be true, it may not be true. But it’s opinion, it’s a belief that they have.
Another belief, very common belief, English is difficult. Or, English is complicated. Well, that’s just a belief. me English very easy, because I’m a native speaker, just your 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 is super easy.” These just beliefs that come from our experiences. The problem is these limiting beliefs limit us. in fact do limit us. They stop us from
better. They cause a lot of problems for us as students, as learners. 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 is complicated, just look the writing system. It’s so different from English. And these beliefs hurt my motivation. They my energy, and in fact they’re wrong.
They’re true. Japanese does not have to be difficult, it does have to be compli- cated. A small child, even small American child, could learn Japanese very effortlessly, very easily. the reason is, the number one reason is, they don’t the limiting beliefs. They can sing songs and play games and enjoy language, and they’ll learn it so quickly, so easily, they’ll say “Japanese is easy.” Well, it’s the same with with you. You learned in a very painful, difficult way in the past. And so developed, you created these beliefs in your head. English difficult. English is boring. English is painful. I’m not at English. I’ll never speak excellent English. These are just beliefs.
So how you eliminate these beliefs? Okay, you have these beliefs. know they’re negative, you know they’re not helping you. But we have figure out, how can we get rid of the beliefs? That’s the first step, you have to weaken them. have to make them weaker and weaker and weaker. You have to them down. Well 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, makes the belief stronger or weaker. So, for example, you this idea “English is painful and boring.” And when you of this belief, where does it come from?

Well, you think of all these past experiences. You of the time in middle school where your teacher corrected your mistake and you felt terrible. And you 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 more memories, of these negative experiences, these negative references. And if you 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 to question the experiences. Take the power away from the experiences. And an easy way to that is just to ask questions about them. For example, me ask this question. Your past English schools, were excellent? Were they just fantastic English schools with fantastic, amazing, fun, positive teachers? Did you have a great time every day? Well, I know for most of you answer is 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. did those schools that you went to, or the you used, did they use proven methods? Did they research-based methods? Did they know a lot 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 the same textbooks. They don’t know why. Maybe the boss 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 maybe the reason you believe English is difficult is you used difficult methods in the past, or your teachers did. Maybe you think English is boring because the past you used boring methods. You went to boring schools. You 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. your limiting beliefs. Challenge your limiting beliefs. Another question, in did you learn deeply? For example, did you take one chapter in your book and it for a long time so that you totally mastered it, so that knew it completely, 100% and never forgot it? Probably not, most schools I have and the ones I have taught in, it’s quite the opposite. The teachers go very, very, very quickly. learn one chapter in your book, boom, after one on to the next one, and the next one. chapter has so many new words, so much new grammar.
For example, my with Spanish in high school and university, I took Spanish, I’ve had a total of maybe two years of Spanish, I forgot it all. Because we never learned deeply. They tried to make us learn as many words as possible, a of words, a lot of words, a lot of grammar, very, very fast. then, of course, I forgot everything. How about you? Did you learn in your schools? If not, maybe that was one of the problems. Maybe English feels because you never learned deeply. Maybe English is not the problem.
Finally, did you with a grammar translation 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 the school the problem, not English. So think about these questions and think about them every day. about them a 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 honest about it. And start to destroy these limiting beliefs. Get of them. They’re wrong. English is not difficult. English is not painful. English not boring. It’s only a belief. It’s only a past experience. You can that now and in the future. So let’s do that.

Let’s now about empowering beliefs, the positive side. So to empower, the verb, to means to make stronger. It means to give power to person. Or in this case, it means 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 make you stronger. For example, here’s empowering belief. You can replace your old limiting belief, add this one instead. can say “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” Because that’s what of the scientific research shows, our brain naturally learns languages. It is designed to language. It should be 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 totally natural way. And the more naturally I tried to learn Japanese, for example, 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 choose that belief. Here’s another belief you might decide choose “English can be fun and effortless.”

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

And to make these beliefs stronger, you need experiences. Remember, you need references, need examples that prove the belief. So I’m going give you some examples and you can find more. Go people who speak English very well. Or maybe even 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 you to find these people and look at their beliefs. I’ll tell you some of beliefs because he’s a 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 speaks Japanese, speaks Russian. These are all, supposedly, difficult languages. For him they’re not difficult. They’re easy effortless. That’s a very strong belief he has.

Another belief he has is that you must 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 interesting things that he enjoys. So, him, language learning is interesting. What’s really interesting for me is that these are the beliefs that all of my best students have. They have these same ideas. The best students, the ones who learn the fastest, the who have the best test scores, the ones with the best speaking, all 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 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 have 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 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 be and effortless.” Maybe “I love English.” I don’t know, down, two, three, four empowering beliefs about English. And day you’re going to do an incantation. That’s a word, that’s a new word, incantation.
An incantation is a phrase or sentence that you say again again. It has almost a magic idea, it comes magic. An incantation is a magical sentence. It’s a sentence, you the sentence something will happen. That’s where it comes from. But for an incantation is just a belief you are going to repeat again and again again every day.So here’s what you’re going to do. For “English can be fun and effortless.” You’re going to that out loud every 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. you walk, as you’re getting ready for the lesson, you’re to repeat this out loud. You’re going to say “English can be 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 your body, have good posture 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 and 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 being bored. I promise you will learn so much if you do this. So do these incantations every day just before you a lesson. Get your body strong, peak emotional state, and then say these incantations. English be fun and effortless. English can be fun and effortless. Now body, your mind, your beliefs, they’re all together, very strong. Then you’re ready learn.

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