Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

Beliefs are another important part of managing psychology, of strengthening your psychology so that you will learn English, anything in fact, much faster. And there are two kinds of beliefs to general categories beliefs. Limiting and empowering.
Let’s talk about limiting beliefs first. Now limiting means, is something that stops you. It’s like a boundary. It stops you from ahead. So a 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 students. They would tell me “AJ, I can’t speak English well because have English trauma.”
What is English trauma? What is that, are they talking about? Well, trauma means some kind of injury, kind of hurt. Emotional hurt, deep emotional hurt. So they mean is that they had some very negative, painful experiences with English in the past. other words, when they were in school in English classes, even as going to other English schools, they had very negative experiences. And all these negative experiences created some very negative beliefs, some very limiting beliefs. For example, they say “I am 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 they have.
Another belief, a very common belief, English is difficult. Or, English complicated. Well, that’s just a belief. For me English very easy, I’m a native speaker, just like your native language you 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 are just that come from our experiences. The problem is these limiting beliefs 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 have them, too. I try to learn Japanese, for example, I have a of these limiting beliefs I realize. I think “Oh, Japanese is so difficult.” Japanese is complicated, look at the writing system. It’s so different from English. And these hurt my motivation. They lower my energy, and in fact they’re wrong.
They’re true. Japanese does not have to be difficult, it does not to be compli- cated. A small child, even a small American child, learn Japanese very effortlessly, very easily. And the reason is, the one reason is, they don’t have the limiting beliefs. They can sing songs 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 with English with you. You 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 painful. I’m not 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 to figure out, how can we get rid of the beliefs? That’s the first step, you have to weaken them. You have make them weaker and weaker and weaker. You have to cut down. Well beliefs get stronger from references. And reference just an experience or a memory. Sometimes it’s just something imagine, actually. But it’s a specific experience or a specific imagination, specific moment, that makes the belief stronger or weaker. So, for example, have this idea “English is painful and boring.” And when you think this belief, where does it come from?

Well, you think of all these past experiences. You think the time in middle school where your teacher corrected your mistake you felt terrible. And you think of maybe the bad grades you got on the or all the red marks on your English papers. And 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 difficult. English is painful. I’m not good at English.” So to weaken these, you have to question the references.

You have to question the experiences. Take the power away from experiences. And an easy way to do that is just to ask questions about them. For example, let 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 most of you the answer is no. So that’s interesting, so if your schools were excellent, maybe the school was the problem. Maybe it’s not you. your English is not great because you did not go to great schools. And 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 research about English learning, English teaching? Did they only the best methods? Or did they just use the that everybody else uses?
Well, I know from experience as a teacher, most schools just use the same textbooks. don’t know why. Maybe the boss tells them “We must this book.” But they’re not choosing the very, very best methods. They’re choosing the very, very best books. And so maybe the reason believe English is 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 to schools. You had boring teachers. Maybe English isn’t the problem. Maybe was these past experiences. Maybe it was the way did it or where you did it. Ask yourself these questions. Think about them detail. Weaken your limiting beliefs. Challenge your limiting beliefs. Another question, school did you learn deeply? For example, did you take chapter in your book and learn it for a long time so that you totally mastered it, 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 quite opposite. The teachers go very, very, very quickly. You learn chapter in your book, boom, after one week on the next one, and the next one. Each chapter has so many words, so much new grammar.
For example, my experience Spanish in high school and university, I took Spanish, I’ve a total of maybe two years of Spanish, but I it all. Because we never learned deeply. They just tried to make us learn many words as possible, a lot of words, a lot of words, lot of grammar, very, very fast. And then, of course, I forgot everything. How about you? you learn deeply 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 learn a grammar translation method? Did you study a lot grammar rules? Did you take a lot of tests? Did you feel good that? Again, maybe the method was the problem. Maybe school is the problem, not English. So think about questions and think about them every day. Think about them a lot, especially this as you listen to Lesson Number 4. I want you to think these questions again and again and again. And really be honest it. And start to destroy these limiting beliefs. Get 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 experience. You can change 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 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 you feel powerful, that gives you power. That’s the kind of beliefs want and you need to choose them. You must decide beliefs will make you stronger. For example, here’s an empowering belief. You replace your old limiting belief, add this one instead. You say “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” Because that’s what of the scientific research shows, our brain naturally learns languages. It designed to learn language. It should be easy. It be effortless. It should feel good. You learned your native language that way. It wasn’t 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, the easier it feels. 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. Decide to that belief. Here’s another belief you might decide to “English can be fun and effortless.”

English can be and effortless. That’s an empowering belief and it’s also true. You can of a 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. English can be and effortless. That’s an empowering belief you want to choose and you want to it every day.

And to make these beliefs stronger, you need experiences. Remember, you need references, you examples that prove the belief. So I’m going to you some examples and you can find more. Go people who speak English very well. Or maybe even that learned another language very well. I’ll give you one of my favorite examples, Steve Kaufman The Linguist speaks, I believe, twelve languages now. I want you to these people and look at their beliefs. I’ll tell some of his beliefs because he’s a friend, I’ve talked to a number of times, and Steve believes, for example, language learning is easy and effortless. That’s his belief. He’s native English speaker, he speaks Cantonese, he speaks Mandarin, he speaks Japanese, he speaks Russian. These all, supposedly, difficult languages. For him they’re not difficult. They’re easy and effortless. That’s a very strong belief has.

Another belief he has is that you must learn language naturally and you must on meaning. So in other words, he doesn’t focus on the grammar. He’s not focusing boring textbooks. He’s reading interesting things that he enjoys. He’s listening to 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 have these same ideas. The best students, the ones who learn fastest, the ones who have the best test scores, the ones with best speaking, they all believe these things. They all believe that English is fun, interesting and effortless. all believe that language learning is natural. They all believe that they focus on the meaning, not on the grammar and the little pieces of the language. So if want to be like these successful people, you need to think like them. You to have the same beliefs as them.
So here’s what I want you to do. Here’s your homework. is the last thing, the last part of this lesson. What 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.” I don’t know, write down, two, three, four empowering about English. And every day you’re going to do an incantation. That’s a good word, that’s new word, incantation.
An incantation is a phrase or sentence that you say and again. It has almost a magic idea, it from magic. An incantation is a magical sentence. It’s a sentence, say the sentence something will happen. That’s where it from. But 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. For example “English be fun and effortless.” You’re going to 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 add one more thing. As 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 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 body, you have good posture and now you’re also saying these strong beliefs. English can be 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 its fine. 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 being bored. promise you will learn so much faster if you do this. So these incantations every day just before you do a lesson. Get your body strong, peak emotional state, and say these incantations. English can be fun and effortless. English can fun and effortless. Now 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 for “Beliefs.”