Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

Beliefs another important part of managing your psychology, of strengthening your so that you will learn English, or anything in fact, much faster. And are two kinds of beliefs to general categories of beliefs. Limiting empowering.
Let’s talk about limiting beliefs first. Now means, limit is something that stops you. It’s like a boundary. It stops you from going ahead. So limiting belief is a belief that stops you from improving, belief that stops you from getting better. And I’d say most English students limiting beliefs and many English students have very strong limiting beliefs. I call these beliefs English trauma I got 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, 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 very negative, painful experiences English in the past. In other words, when they in school in English classes, even as adults going to other English schools, they had very experiences. And all these negative experiences have created some very beliefs, some very limiting beliefs. For example, they say “I 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 that they have.
belief, a very common belief, English is difficult. Or, English complicated. Well, that’s just a belief. For me English very easy, because I’m native speaker, just like your native language for you is very easy. Tomoe can speak Japanese because she’s Japanese, so I might say “Japanese is difficult,” and she would say “No, is super easy.” These are just beliefs that come from our experiences. The problem is these limiting beliefs us. They in fact do limit us. They stop us from
getting better. They cause a 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 look 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 to be difficult, does not have to be compli- cated. A small child, even a small American child, could learn very effortlessly, very easily. And the reason is, the number one reason is, they don’t the limiting beliefs. They can sing songs and play games and enjoy the language, and they’ll learn so quickly, so easily, they’ll say “Japanese is easy.” Well, it’s the same English with you. You learned in a very painful, way in the past. And so you developed, you created these beliefs in your head. is difficult. English is boring. English is painful. I’m good at English. I’ll never speak excellent English. These are beliefs.
So how do you eliminate these beliefs? Okay, have these beliefs. You know they’re negative, you know they’re 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 cut them down. Well beliefs get stronger from references. And reference is just an experience or memory. Sometimes it’s just something you imagine, actually. But it’s a experience or a specific imagination, a specific moment, that makes the belief stronger weaker. So, for example, you have this idea “English painful and boring.” And when you think of this belief, does it come from?

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

You have to the experiences. Take the power away from the experiences. And an easy way to do that just to ask questions about them. For example, let 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 for most of you the answer is no. So that’s interesting, so if your schools were not excellent, maybe the was the problem. Maybe it’s not you. Maybe your is not great because you did not go to schools. And did those schools that you went to, or the books you used, they use 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 that everybody uses?
Well, I know from my experience as a teacher, most schools just use 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 so maybe the reason you English is difficult is because you used difficult methods in past, or your teachers did. Maybe you think English is boring because the past you used boring methods. You went to boring schools. You had teachers. Maybe English isn’t the problem. Maybe it was these past experiences. Maybe it was way you did it or where you did it. Ask yourself these questions. about them in detail. Weaken your limiting beliefs. Challenge your beliefs. Another question, in school did you learn deeply? example, did 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 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, 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, much new grammar.
For example, my experience with in high school and university, I took Spanish, I’ve a total of maybe two years of Spanish, but I forgot all. Because we never learned deeply. They just tried to us 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? Did you learn deeply your schools? If not, maybe that was one of the problems. Maybe English difficult because you never learned deeply. Maybe English is the problem.
Finally, did you learn with a grammar translation method? Did study a lot of grammar rules? Did you take a lot of tests? Did you feel 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 day. Think about them a lot, especially this week as you listen to Lesson Number 4. I you to think about these questions again and again and again. And really honest about it. And start to destroy these limiting beliefs. Get rid of them. They’re wrong. is not difficult. English is not painful. English is not boring. It’s a belief. It’s only a past experience. You can change that and in the future. So let’s do that.

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

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

And to make these beliefs stronger, you 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. find people who speak English very well. Or maybe that have learned another language very well. I’ll give you of my favorite examples, Steve Kaufman of The Linguist speaks, believe, twelve 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 learning easy and effortless. That’s his belief. He’s a native English speaker, he speaks Cantonese, he speaks Mandarin, speaks Japanese, he speaks Russian. These are all, supposedly, difficult languages. For him they’re not difficult. They’re and effortless. That’s a very strong belief he has.

Another he has is that you must learn language naturally and you must focus on meaning. So other 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 interesting things that he enjoys. So, for him, language learning is interesting. What’s really interesting for is that these are the same beliefs that all my best students have. They all have these same ideas. best students, the ones who learn the fastest, the who have the best test scores, the ones with the speaking, they all believe these things. They all believe that is fun, interesting and effortless. They all believe that language learning is natural. all 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 them. You need to have the same beliefs as them.
here’s what I want you to do. Here’s your homework. is the last thing, the last part of this lesson. What I want you to do is down two, three, four empowering beliefs, beliefs that give you about English. Maybe “My brain is a natural language machine.” Maybe “English can be fun and effortless.” Maybe “I love English.” don’t know, write down, two, three, four empowering beliefs English. And every day you’re going to do an incantation. That’s good word, that’s a new word, incantation.
An is a phrase or sentence that you say again and again. has almost a magic idea, it comes from magic. An incantation is 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 to repeat and again and 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 posture. And you’re breathing and you’re smiling. Well, you’re going to add one thing. As you walk, as you’re getting ready for the lesson, you’re going to this out loud. You’re going to say “English can be fun and effortless.” You’re going say it with some emotion. Say it with feeling you’re smiling, you’re breathing deep, you’re moving your body, you have good posture and now you’re also these strong beliefs. English can be fun and effortless. You repeat it again. can be fun and effortless. And then you say again. English can be fun and effortless.

You can this in your room and its fine. You can do it and make everyone look at you and think you’re crazy. Why not? It’s than feeling powerless, right? It’s better than being bored. I you will learn so much faster if you do this. So do these incantations every day just before you a lesson. Get your body strong, peak emotional state, then say these incantations. English can be fun and effortless. English can fun and effortless. Now your body, your mind, your beliefs, they’re together, very strong. Then you’re ready to learn.

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