Beliefs

BELIEFS

Hello, welcome to fourth lesson. This 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 fact, much faster. And there are two kinds of beliefs to categories of beliefs. Limiting and empowering.
Let’s talk about beliefs first. Now limiting means, limit is something that you. It’s like a boundary. It stops you from ahead. So a limiting belief is a belief that stops you from improving, a belief stops you from getting better. And I’d say most students have limiting beliefs and many English students have strong limiting beliefs. I call these beliefs English trauma and I got that name from few of my Japanese students. They would tell me “AJ, I can’t speak English well because I have trauma.”
What is English trauma? What is that, what 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 had some 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 all negative experiences have created some very negative beliefs, some very limiting beliefs. For example, say “I am not 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 that they have.
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 your native language 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 easy.” These are just beliefs that come from our experiences. The problem is these limiting beliefs limit us. They fact do limit us. They stop us from
better. They cause a lot of problems for us students, as learners. I have them, too. As I try to Japanese, for example, I have a lot of these limiting beliefs I realize. I “Oh, Japanese is so difficult.” Japanese is complicated, just look at the writing system. It’s so different English. And these beliefs hurt my motivation. They lower my energy, and fact they’re wrong.
They’re not true. Japanese does have to be difficult, it does not have to be compli- cated. A small child, even a small child, could learn Japanese very effortlessly, very easily. And reason is, the number one reason is, they don’t 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 is easy.” Well, it’s the same English with you. You learned in a very painful, difficult 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 at English. I’ll never speak excellent English. These are just beliefs.
how do you eliminate these beliefs? Okay, you have beliefs. You know they’re negative, you know they’re not helping you. But we have to out, how can we get 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 stronger from references. And reference is just an experience or a memory. Sometimes it’s something you imagine, actually. But it’s a specific experience or a imagination, a specific moment, that makes the belief stronger weaker. So, for example, you have this idea “English is painful and boring.” when you think of this belief, where does it 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 the red marks on English papers. And you start adding more and more and more memories, more of negative experiences, these negative references. And if you get enough, you will develop very, strong, deep, powerful belief “English is difficult. English is painful. I’m not good English.” So to weaken these, you just have to question references.

You have to question the experiences. Take the power away from experiences. And an easy way to do that is just to questions about them. For example, let me ask this question. Your past English schools, were they excellent? they just fantastic English schools with fantastic, amazing, fun, English teachers? Did you have a great time every day? Well, I know for most of you the is no. So that’s interesting, so if your schools were not excellent, the school was the problem. Maybe it’s not you. Maybe your English not great because you did not go to great schools. And those schools that you went to, or the books used, did they use proven methods? Did they use research-based methods? they know a lot about the research about English learning, English teaching? they only use the best methods? Or did they just the textbook that everybody else uses?
Well, I from my experience as a teacher, most schools just use same textbooks. They don’t know why. Maybe the boss tells them “We must use this book.” But they’re choosing the very, very best methods. They’re not choosing very, very best books. And so maybe the reason you English is difficult is because you used difficult methods in the past, or your teachers did. Maybe you English is boring because in the past you used methods. You went to boring schools. You had boring teachers. Maybe isn’t the problem. Maybe 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 limiting beliefs. Another question, in school did you learn deeply? For example, you take one chapter in your book and learn it for a time so that you totally mastered it, so that you knew it completely, 100% and never forgot it? 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 to 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 of Spanish, but I forgot it all. Because we learned deeply. They just tried to make us learn as many as possible, a lot of words, a lot of words, a lot of grammar, 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 never learned deeply. Maybe is not the problem.
Finally, did you learn with grammar translation method? Did you study a lot of rules? Did you take a lot of tests? Did feel good about that? Again, maybe the method was the problem. the school is the problem, not English. So think about these questions think about them every day. Think about them a lot, especially week as you listen to Lesson Number 4. I you to think about these questions again and again and again. And be honest about it. And start to destroy these beliefs. Get rid of them. They’re wrong. English is not difficult. English not painful. English is 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 talk now empowering beliefs, the positive side. So to 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 makes you feel powerful, that gives you power. That’s kind of beliefs you want and you need to choose them. You must decide which will make you stronger. For example, here’s an empowering belief. You can replace your old belief, add this one instead. You can say “My is a natural language learning machine.” Because that’s what all the scientific research shows, our brain naturally learns languages. It is designed learn language. It should be easy. It should be effortless. It should feel good. You learned your native that way. It wasn’t difficult was it? English was easy for me learn, because I did it in a totally natural way. the more naturally I tried to learn Japanese, for example, Spanish, the easier it feels. So this is a new belief and you write it down, think about it. Write down this idea, this belief “My brain is a natural language machine.” Think about it every day. Decide to choose that belief. Here’s another belief you might decide to “English can be fun and effortless.”

English can be fun effortless. That’s an empowering belief and it’s also true. You can think of a of examples for this. Some of these mini-stories you’re 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 to it every day.

And to make these beliefs stronger, you need experiences. Remember, you references, you need examples that prove the belief. So I’m going to give you some examples and you can more. Go find people who speak English very well. Or maybe even that learned another language very well. I’ll give you one of my examples, Steve Kaufman of The Linguist speaks, I believe, twelve languages now. 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 him a number of times, and Steve believes, for example, that learning is easy and effortless. That’s his belief. He’s 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 strong belief he has.

Another belief he has is you must learn language naturally and you must focus meaning. So in other words, he doesn’t focus on grammar. He’s not focusing on boring textbooks. He’s reading interesting things that enjoys. He’s listening to interesting things that he enjoys. So, for him, language learning is interesting. What’s interesting for me is that these are the same beliefs that all of my best have. They all have these 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 is fun, interesting and effortless. They all that language learning is natural. They all believe that they should focus the meaning, not on the grammar and the little pieces the language. So if you want to be like these people, you need to think like them. You need to have the 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, empowering beliefs, beliefs that give you power about English. Maybe “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” “English can be fun and effortless.” Maybe “I love English.” don’t know, write down, two, three, four empowering beliefs about English. every day you’re going to do an incantation. That’s good word, that’s a new word, incantation.
An incantation is phrase or sentence that you say again and again. It has a magic idea, it comes from magic. An incantation a magical sentence. It’s a sentence, you say the sentence something will happen. That’s where it comes from. for us an incantation is just a belief you are going repeat again and again and again every day.So here’s what you’re going to do. example “English can be fun and effortless.” You’re going say that out loud every day while you’re walking along you’re doing your posture. And you’re breathing and you’re smiling. Well, you’re going to add one more thing. As walk, as you’re getting ready for the lesson, you’re 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 with feeling so you’re smiling, you’re breathing deep, you’re your body, you have good posture and now you’re also saying these beliefs. English can be fun and effortless. You repeat it again. English can be and effortless. And then you say it again. English can be fun and effortless.

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

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