Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

Beliefs are another important of managing your psychology, of strengthening your psychology so that you learn English, or anything in fact, much faster. And there are kinds of beliefs to general categories of beliefs. Limiting and empowering.
Let’s talk about beliefs first. Now limiting means, limit is something that stops you. It’s like a boundary. It stops you going ahead. So a limiting belief is a belief stops you from improving, a belief that stops you from better. And I’d say most English students have limiting beliefs and many English students have 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 because have English trauma.”
What is English trauma? What is that, are they talking about? Well, trauma means some kind of injury, some of hurt. Emotional hurt, deep emotional hurt. So what they mean is that they had very 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 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. may be true, it may not be true. But it’s an opinion, it’s a belief they have.
Another belief, a very common belief, is difficult. Or, English is complicated. Well, that’s just a belief. me English very easy, because I’m a native speaker, just like your language for you is very easy. Tomoe can speak Japanese fluently she’s Japanese, so I might say “Japanese is difficult,” and she would say “No, Japanese super easy.” These are just beliefs that come from our experiences. The problem is limiting beliefs limit us. They in fact do limit us. stop us from
getting better. They cause a lot problems for us as students, as learners. I have them, too. I try to learn Japanese, for example, I have lot of these limiting beliefs I realize. I think “Oh, Japanese is so difficult.” is complicated, just look at the writing system. It’s so from English. And these beliefs hurt my motivation. They lower my energy, in 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, a small American child, could 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 and play games and the language, and they’ll learn it so quickly, so easily, they’ll say “Japanese easy.” Well, it’s the same with English with you. You learned in very painful, difficult way in the past. And so you developed, you these beliefs in your head. English is difficult. English is boring. is painful. I’m not good at English. I’ll never excellent English. These are just beliefs.
So how do you eliminate these beliefs? Okay, have these beliefs. You know they’re negative, you know they’re not you. But we have to figure out, how can we get rid of the limiting beliefs? That’s first step, you have to weaken them. You have to make them and weaker and weaker. You have to cut them down. Well beliefs get stronger from references. And reference just an experience or a memory. Sometimes it’s just something you imagine, actually. But it’s a specific experience a specific imagination, a specific moment, that makes the belief or 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 think of the 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 more more and more memories, more of these negative experiences, negative references. And if you get enough, you will develop a very, strong, deep, powerful “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 the experiences. And an easy way do that is just to ask questions about them. For example, let me ask question. Your past English schools, were they excellent? Were they just fantastic schools with fantastic, amazing, fun, positive English teachers? Did you have a time every day? Well, I know for most of you the answer no. So that’s interesting, so if your schools were not excellent, maybe the was the problem. Maybe it’s not you. Maybe your English is not great because did not go to great schools. And did those that you went to, or the books you used, did 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 just use the textbook that everybody else uses?
Well, I from my experience as a teacher, most schools just use the same textbooks. They don’t why. Maybe 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 is difficult is because you used difficult methods the past, or 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 it was these past experiences. Maybe it was way you did it or where you did it. Ask yourself these questions. Think them in detail. Weaken your limiting beliefs. Challenge your limiting beliefs. Another question, school did you learn deeply? For example, did you take one in your book and learn it for a long time so that totally mastered it, so that you knew it completely, 100% and forgot it? Probably not, most schools I have seen and the I have 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 new words, so much new grammar.
For example, my experience Spanish in high school and university, I took Spanish, I’ve had total of maybe two years of Spanish, but I forgot all. Because we never learned deeply. They just tried to make learn as many words as possible, a lot of words, a lot of words, a 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 one of the problems. Maybe English feels difficult because you learned deeply. Maybe English is not the problem.
Finally, you learn with a grammar translation method? Did you study a lot grammar rules? Did you take a lot of tests? you feel good about that? Again, maybe the method was problem. Maybe the school is the problem, not English. So about these questions and think about them every day. Think about them a lot, this week as you listen to Lesson Number 4. I want you think about these questions again and again and again. And really be honest about it. And to destroy these limiting beliefs. Get rid of them. They’re wrong. English is not difficult. English is painful. English is not boring. It’s only a belief. It’s only a past experience. can change that now and in the future. So let’s that.

Let’s talk now about empowering beliefs, the positive side. to empower, the verb, to empower means to make stronger. It means to power to another person. Or in this case, it means the beliefs give power. An empowering belief is a belief that makes you feel powerful, that gives power. That’s the kind of beliefs you want and need to choose them. You must decide which beliefs will make you stronger. example, here’s an empowering belief. You can replace your old limiting belief, add one instead. You can say “My brain is a natural language machine.” Because that’s what all of the scientific research shows, our brain learns languages. It is designed to learn language. It be easy. It should be effortless. It should feel good. You your native language that way. It wasn’t difficult was it? English was easy me to learn, because I did it in a totally natural way. And the more naturally I to learn Japanese, for example, or Spanish, the easier it feels. So is a new belief and you should write it down, think about it. down this idea, this belief “My brain is a language learning machine.” Think about it every day. Decide to that belief. Here’s another belief you might decide to choose “English can fun and effortless.”

English can 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 fun and effortless. That’s an empowering belief you want choose and you want to remember it every day.

And to make these beliefs stronger, you experiences. Remember, you need references, you need examples that prove the belief. So I’m going to you some examples and you can find more. Go find people who speak English very well. Or maybe that have learned another language very well. I’ll give you one of my examples, Steve Kaufman of The Linguist speaks, I believe, twelve now. I want you to find these people and at their beliefs. I’ll tell you some of his because he’s a friend, I’ve talked to him a of times, and Steve believes, for example, that language learning is easy 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, 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 other words, he doesn’t focus on the grammar. He’s not focusing on boring textbooks. He’s reading interesting things he enjoys. He’s listening to interesting things that he enjoys. So, for him, language learning is interesting. What’s really for me is that these are the same beliefs that of my best students have. They all have these same ideas. The best students, the who learn the fastest, the ones who have the test scores, the ones with the best speaking, they believe these things. They all believe that English is fun, interesting and effortless. They all 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 to like these successful people, you need to think like them. You need to have the same beliefs them.
So here’s what I want you to do. Here’s homework. This is the last thing, the last part of this lesson. What want you to do is write down two, three, four empowering beliefs, beliefs that give power about English. Maybe “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” Maybe “English be fun and effortless.” Maybe “I love English.” I don’t know, write down, two, three, empowering beliefs about English. And every day you’re going do an incantation. That’s a good word, that’s a new word, incantation.
An incantation a phrase or sentence that you say again and again. has almost a magic idea, it comes from magic. incantation is a magical sentence. It’s a sentence, you say 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 you’re going to do. For example “English can be fun and effortless.” You’re going to say that 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 thing. As you walk, as you’re getting ready for lesson, you’re going to repeat this out loud. You’re to say “English can be fun and effortless.” You’re going to say with some emotion. Say it with feeling so you’re smiling, you’re breathing deep, you’re moving your body, you have good and now you’re also saying these strong beliefs. English be fun and effortless. You repeat it again. English 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 it outside and make everyone look at you and think you’re crazy. Why not? It’s better than powerless, right? It’s better than being bored. I promise 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, and then say incantations. English can be fun and effortless. English can fun and effortless. Now your body, your mind, your beliefs, they’re all together, strong. Then you’re ready to learn.

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