Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

Beliefs are another part of managing your psychology, of strengthening your psychology so that will learn English, or anything in fact, much faster. there 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. stops you from going ahead. So a limiting belief is a belief that 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 and I that name from a few of my Japanese students. would tell me “AJ, I can’t speak English well because I have trauma.”
What is English trauma? What is that, what are they about? Well, trauma means some kind of injury, some of hurt. Emotional hurt, deep emotional hurt. So what 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 adults going other English schools, they had very negative experiences. And all negative experiences have 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 may be true. But it’s an opinion, it’s a belief that have.
Another belief, a very common belief, English difficult. Or, English is complicated. Well, that’s just a belief. me English very easy, because I’m a native speaker, just your native language for you is very easy. Tomoe can speak Japanese fluently because she’s Japanese, I might say “Japanese is difficult,” and she would say “No, Japanese super easy.” These are just beliefs that come from our experiences. problem is these limiting beliefs limit us. They in fact do limit us. stop us from
getting 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 think “Oh, Japanese so difficult.” Japanese is complicated, just look at the writing system. It’s so different from English. these 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. A small child, even a small American child, could Japanese very effortlessly, very easily. And the reason is, the number one reason is, they don’t have the beliefs. They can sing songs and play games and enjoy the language, and they’ll learn it so quickly, 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. English difficult. English is boring. English is painful. I’m not at English. I’ll never speak excellent English. These are just beliefs.
So how do you eliminate beliefs? Okay, you have these beliefs. You know they’re negative, know they’re not helping you. But we have to figure out, can 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. You to cut them down. Well beliefs get stronger from references. And reference is just an experience or a memory. it’s just something you imagine, actually. But it’s a specific experience or a specific imagination, a moment, that makes the belief stronger or weaker. So, for example, you this idea “English is painful and boring.” And when you of this belief, where does it come from?

Well, you think of all past experiences. You think of the time in middle school your teacher corrected your mistake and you felt terrible. And you think of maybe the bad grades you on the test or all the red marks on English papers. And you start adding more and more and more memories, of these 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 just have to the references.

You have to question the experiences. Take power away from the experiences. And an easy way to that is just to ask questions about them. For example, let ask this question. Your past English schools, were they excellent? Were they just English schools with fantastic, amazing, fun, positive English teachers? Did you have a great every day? Well, I know for most of you the answer is no. So that’s interesting, so your schools were not excellent, maybe the school was the problem. Maybe it’s not you. Maybe 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 the research about learning, English teaching? Did they only use 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 textbooks. They don’t know why. Maybe the boss tells them “We must this book.” But they’re not choosing the very, very methods. They’re not choosing the very, very best books. so maybe the reason you believe English is difficult because you used difficult methods in the past, or teachers did. Maybe you think English is boring because in the past you boring 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 way you did or where you did it. Ask yourself these questions. about them in detail. Weaken your limiting beliefs. Challenge your limiting beliefs. Another question, in did you learn deeply? For example, did you take one chapter in your and learn it for a long time so that you totally mastered it, so that you knew completely, 100% and never forgot it? Probably not, most schools I have seen and ones I have taught in, it’s quite the opposite. The teachers go very, very, very quickly. You learn chapter in your book, boom, after one week on to the next one, and the one. Each chapter has so many new words, so new grammar.
For example, my experience with Spanish in high and university, I took Spanish, I’ve had a total of maybe two years of Spanish, but forgot it all. Because we never learned deeply. They just to make us learn as many words as possible, lot of words, a lot of words, a lot 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, did you learn with a grammar method? Did you study a lot of grammar rules? Did 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 these questions and think about them day. Think about them a lot, especially this week as you listen to Number 4. I want you to think about these questions again again and again. And really be honest about it. start 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. You can change now and in the future. So let’s do that.

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

English can be fun and effortless. That’s an belief and it’s also 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. they’re not serious. English can be fun and effortless. That’s an empowering you want to choose and you want to remember it every day.

And to make beliefs stronger, you need experiences. Remember, you need references, you need examples prove the belief. So I’m going to give you examples and you can find more. Go find people who speak English very well. Or maybe even that learned another language very well. I’ll give you one of favorite examples, Steve Kaufman of The Linguist speaks, I believe, twelve languages now. I want you find these people and look at their beliefs. I’ll tell you some his beliefs because he’s a friend, I’ve talked to him a number times, and Steve believes, for example, that language learning is easy effortless. That’s his belief. He’s a native English speaker, speaks Cantonese, he speaks Mandarin, he speaks Japanese, he 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 belief has is that you must learn language naturally and you 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 listening interesting things that he enjoys. So, for him, language is 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 the fastest, the ones have the best test scores, the ones with the speaking, they all believe these things. They all believe English is fun, interesting and effortless. They all believe language learning is natural. They all believe that they should on the meaning, not on the grammar and the little pieces of the language. So if you to be like these successful people, you need to 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 this lesson. What I want you to do is down two, three, four empowering beliefs, beliefs that give you power about English. “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” Maybe “English can be and effortless.” Maybe “I love English.” I don’t know, write down, two, three, empowering beliefs 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 sentence, you say the sentence something will happen. That’s it comes from. But for us an incantation is a belief you are going to repeat again and and again every day.So here’s what you’re going to do. For “English can be fun and effortless.” You’re going to say that out loud every day while you’re walking and 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 going to 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 deep, you’re moving your body, you have good posture and now you’re also saying strong beliefs. English can be fun and effortless. You repeat again. English can be fun and effortless. And then say it again. English can be fun and effortless.

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

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