Beliefs

BELIEFS

Hello, welcome to the fourth lesson. This one 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 in fact, much faster. And there are two kinds beliefs to general 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 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 beliefs and many English students have very strong limiting beliefs. I call these beliefs English trauma and I that name from a few of my Japanese students. would tell me “AJ, I can’t speak English well I have English trauma.”
What is English trauma? What is that, are they talking about? Well, trauma means some kind of injury, some kind of hurt. Emotional hurt, deep hurt. So what they mean is that they had some negative, painful experiences with English in the past. In words, when they were in school in English classes, even as adults going to other English schools, had very negative experiences. And all these negative experiences have created very negative beliefs, some very limiting beliefs. For example, they “I am not good at English.” Well, that’s a belief. may be true, it may not be true. But it’s 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, just like your native language for is very easy. Tomoe can speak Japanese fluently because she’s Japanese, so I say “Japanese is difficult,” and she would say “No, Japanese is super easy.” These just beliefs that come from our experiences. The problem these limiting beliefs limit us. They in fact do limit us. They stop from
getting better. They cause a lot of problems for us as students, as learners. have them, too. As I try to 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 from English. And beliefs hurt my motivation. They lower my energy, and fact they’re wrong.
They’re not true. Japanese does not have be difficult, it does not have to be compli- cated. small child, even a small American child, could learn Japanese very effortlessly, very easily. And the reason is, number one reason is, they 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 so you developed, you created beliefs in your head. English is difficult. English is boring. English is painful. I’m good at English. I’ll never speak excellent English. These are just beliefs.
So how you eliminate these beliefs? Okay, you have these beliefs. You they’re negative, you know they’re not helping you. But we have to figure out, how we get rid of the limiting beliefs? That’s the step, you have to weaken them. You have to make them weaker and weaker and weaker. have to cut them down. Well beliefs get stronger from references. And reference is just experience or a memory. Sometimes it’s just something you imagine, actually. it’s a specific experience or a specific imagination, a moment, that makes the belief stronger or weaker. So, for example, you have this idea “English painful and boring.” And when you think of this belief, where does come from?

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

You have to question experiences. Take the power away from the experiences. And an way to do that is just to ask questions about them. For example, let me ask this question. past English schools, were they excellent? Were they just English schools with fantastic, amazing, fun, positive English teachers? Did have a great time every day? Well, I know for most of the answer is no. So that’s interesting, so if your schools were not excellent, maybe the school the problem. Maybe it’s not you. Maybe your English not great because you did not go to great schools. did those schools 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 English learning, English teaching? Did they only use the methods? Or did they just use the textbook that everybody uses?
Well, I know from my experience as teacher, most schools just use the same textbooks. They don’t know why. the boss tells them “We must use this book.” But they’re not choosing very, very best methods. They’re not choosing the very, best books. And so maybe the reason you believe English difficult is because you used difficult methods in the past, your teachers did. Maybe you think English is boring in the past you used boring methods. You went boring schools. You had boring teachers. Maybe English isn’t the problem. Maybe it was these experiences. Maybe it was the way you did it or where did it. Ask yourself these questions. Think about them detail. Weaken your limiting beliefs. Challenge your limiting beliefs. Another question, in did you learn deeply? For example, did you take one in your book and learn it for a long time so that you mastered it, so that you knew it completely, 100% and never forgot it? Probably not, most schools I seen and the ones I have taught in, it’s the opposite. The teachers go very, very, very quickly. You learn chapter in your book, boom, after one week on to the next one, the next one. Each chapter has so many new words, so much grammar.
For example, my experience with Spanish in school and university, I took Spanish, I’ve had a of maybe two years of Spanish, but 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. And then, of course, forgot everything. How about you? Did you learn deeply in schools? If not, maybe that was one of the problems. English feels difficult because you never learned deeply. Maybe English is not problem.
Finally, did you learn with a grammar translation method? Did you study lot of grammar rules? Did you take a lot tests? Did you feel good about that? Again, maybe the method was problem. Maybe the school is the problem, not English. So think about these questions and think about every day. Think about them a lot, especially this week you listen to Lesson Number 4. I want you to about these questions again and again and again. And really be about it. And start to destroy these limiting beliefs. Get rid 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 change that now and the future. So let’s do that.

Let’s talk now about beliefs, the positive side. So to empower, the verb, to means to make stronger. It means to give power to another person. Or in this case, it means beliefs give you power. An empowering belief is a belief that makes you powerful, that gives you power. That’s the kind of beliefs want and you need to choose them. You must decide which will make you stronger. For example, here’s an empowering belief. can replace your old limiting 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 to language. It should be easy. It should be effortless. should feel good. You learned your native language that way. It wasn’t difficult was it? 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, or Spanish, easier it feels. So this is a new belief and you write it down, think about it. Write down this idea, this “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” Think it every day. Decide to choose that belief. Here’s belief you might decide to choose “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 lot of examples for this. Some of these mini-stories you’re 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 you want to choose and you to remember it every day.

And to make these beliefs stronger, need experiences. Remember, you need references, you need examples that prove the belief. So I’m to give you some examples and you can find more. Go find people who speak English well. Or maybe even that have learned another language very well. I’ll you one of my favorite 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 he’s a friend, I’ve talked to him a number of times, Steve 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, he Russian. These are all, supposedly, difficult languages. For him they’re not difficult. They’re easy and effortless. That’s a strong belief he has.

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

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