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 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 a boundary. It stops you from going ahead. So a limiting belief is a belief that stops from improving, a belief that stops you from getting better. And I’d say most English have 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 because I have English trauma.”
What is English trauma? What is that, are they talking about? Well, trauma means some kind injury, some kind of hurt. Emotional hurt, deep emotional 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 going to other English schools, they had very negative experiences. And these negative experiences have created some very negative beliefs, some very limiting beliefs. For example, say “I am not good at English.” Well, that’s belief. It may be true, it may not be true. it’s an opinion, it’s a belief that they have.
Another belief, a very belief, English is difficult. Or, English is complicated. Well, that’s just a belief. For me 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, I might say “Japanese is difficult,” and she would say “No, Japanese super easy.” These are just beliefs that come from experiences. The problem is these limiting beliefs limit us. They 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. As I to learn Japanese, for example, I have a lot of these limiting beliefs I realize. I “Oh, Japanese is so difficult.” Japanese is complicated, just look at the writing system. It’s different from English. And these beliefs hurt my motivation. They lower energy, and in fact they’re wrong.
They’re not true. does not have to be difficult, it does not have to be compli- cated. A small child, a small American child, could learn Japanese very effortlessly, very easily. And reason is, the number one reason is, they don’t have the limiting beliefs. They can sing and play games and enjoy 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 created these beliefs in your head. is difficult. English is boring. English is painful. I’m not at English. I’ll never speak excellent English. These are just beliefs.
So do you eliminate these beliefs? Okay, you have these beliefs. You know they’re negative, you they’re not helping you. But we have to figure out, how can get rid of the limiting beliefs? That’s the first step, have to weaken them. You have to make them weaker and weaker and weaker. You have cut them down. Well beliefs get stronger from references. reference is just an experience or a memory. Sometimes it’s just something you imagine, actually. But it’s specific experience or a specific imagination, a specific moment, makes the belief stronger or weaker. So, for example, have this idea “English is painful and boring.” And you think of this belief, where does it come from?

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

You have to question the experiences. Take the away from the experiences. And an easy way to do that is just ask questions about them. For example, let me ask this question. Your past English schools, they excellent? Were they just fantastic English schools with fantastic, amazing, fun, positive teachers? Did you have a great time every day? Well, know for most of you the answer is no. that’s interesting, so if your schools were not excellent, maybe the was the problem. Maybe it’s not you. Maybe your English not great because you did not go to great schools. And did schools that you went to, or the books you used, did they proven methods? Did they use research-based methods? Did they know a lot the research about English learning, English teaching? Did they only use the methods? Or did they just use the textbook that else uses?
Well, I know from my experience as a teacher, most just use the same textbooks. They don’t know why. the boss tells them “We must use this book.” But they’re not choosing the very, best methods. They’re not choosing the very, very best books. And so maybe reason you believe English is difficult is because you used difficult methods in the past, or your did. Maybe you think English is boring because in the past you used boring methods. You went boring schools. You had boring teachers. Maybe English isn’t the problem. Maybe it was past experiences. Maybe it was the way you did it or you did it. Ask yourself these questions. Think about them in detail. your limiting beliefs. Challenge your limiting beliefs. Another question, in did you learn deeply? For example, did you take one chapter in your book learn it for a long time so that you mastered it, so that you knew it completely, 100% never forgot it? Probably not, most schools I have seen the ones I have taught in, it’s quite the opposite. The go very, very, very quickly. You learn one chapter in 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 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 make us learn as many words as possible, a of words, a lot of words, a lot of grammar, very, fast. And then, of course, I forgot everything. How about you? Did you learn in your schools? If not, maybe that was one of the problems. Maybe English feels difficult you never learned deeply. Maybe English is not the problem.
Finally, did you learn with grammar translation method? Did you study a lot of rules? Did you take a lot of tests? Did you good about that? Again, maybe the method was the problem. the school is the problem, not English. So think about these questions and about them every day. Think about them a lot, especially week as you listen to Lesson Number 4. I want to think about 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 past experience. You 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 give power to another person. Or in this case, it means beliefs give you power. An empowering belief is a belief that makes you feel powerful, that gives power. That’s the kind of beliefs you want and you need choose them. You must decide which beliefs will make 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 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. should be 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 a totally natural way. And the more naturally tried to learn Japanese, for example, or Spanish, the easier it feels. this is a new belief and you should write it down, think it. Write down this idea, this belief “My brain a natural language learning machine.” Think about it every day. to choose that belief. Here’s another belief you might decide to choose “English can be fun effortless.”

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

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

Another belief he has is that you must learn naturally and you must focus on meaning. So in words, he doesn’t focus on the grammar. He’s not focusing on textbooks. He’s reading interesting things that he enjoys. He’s listening to interesting things that enjoys. So, for him, language learning is interesting. What’s really for me is that these are the same beliefs that all of my best have. They all have these same ideas. The best students, the ones who learn the fastest, the ones have the best test scores, the ones with the best speaking, they all believe things. They all believe that English is fun, interesting effortless. They all believe that language learning is natural. all believe that they should focus on the meaning, not on the grammar and the little pieces the language. So if you want to be like successful people, you need to think like them. You to have the same beliefs as them.
So here’s I want you to do. Here’s your homework. This is the thing, the last part of this lesson. What I you to do is write down two, three, four empowering beliefs, beliefs give you power about English. Maybe “My brain is natural language learning machine.” Maybe “English can be fun and effortless.” Maybe “I English.” I 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 incantation is a phrase or sentence you say again and again. It has almost a idea, it comes from magic. An incantation is a sentence. It’s a sentence, you say the sentence something will happen. That’s where it from. But for us an incantation is just 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 that out 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 more thing. you walk, as you’re getting ready for the lesson, you’re going to repeat this out loud. You’re to say “English can be fun and effortless.” You’re going to say it 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. You it again. English can be fun and effortless. And you say it again. English can be fun and effortless.

You do this in your room and its fine. You can do it outside and everyone look at you and think you’re crazy. Why not? It’s better feeling powerless, right? It’s better than being bored. I promise you will learn so much if you do this. So do these incantations every just before you do a lesson. Get your body strong, peak emotional state, and then say incantations. English can be fun and effortless. English can be fun 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 story “Beliefs.”