Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

Beliefs another important part of managing your psychology, of strengthening psychology so that you will learn English, or anything in fact, much faster. there are two kinds of beliefs to general categories of beliefs. Limiting and empowering.
Let’s talk limiting beliefs first. Now limiting means, limit is something that stops you. It’s like a boundary. It stops from going ahead. So a limiting belief is a belief that stops you from improving, a belief stops you from getting better. And I’d say most English students have limiting beliefs and many 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 because have English trauma.”
What is English trauma? What that, what are they talking about? Well, trauma means some kind injury, some kind of hurt. Emotional hurt, deep emotional hurt. So what they mean that they had some very negative, painful experiences with English in the past. In other words, when were in school in English classes, even as adults going to other schools, they had very negative experiences. And all these negative experiences have created some very negative beliefs, some limiting beliefs. For example, they say “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, English difficult. Or, English is complicated. Well, that’s just a belief. For 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, so I say “Japanese is difficult,” and she would say “No, Japanese is easy.” These are just beliefs that come from our experiences. problem is these limiting beliefs limit us. They in do limit us. They stop us from
getting better. They cause lot of problems for us as students, as learners. have them, too. As I try to learn Japanese, for example, I have a lot of these beliefs I realize. I think “Oh, Japanese is so difficult.” Japanese is complicated, just look at writing system. It’s so different from English. And these beliefs hurt motivation. They lower my energy, and in fact they’re wrong.
They’re not true. does not have to be difficult, it does not have be compli- cated. A small child, even a small child, could learn Japanese very effortlessly, very easily. And reason is, the number one reason is, they don’t have limiting beliefs. They can sing songs and play games and enjoy the language, they’ll learn it so quickly, so easily, they’ll say “Japanese is easy.” Well, it’s the same with with you. You learned in a very painful, difficult way in the past. And 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 do you eliminate these beliefs? Okay, you have these beliefs. know they’re negative, you know they’re not helping you. we have to figure out, how can we get of the limiting beliefs? That’s the first step, you have 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 a memory. Sometimes it’s just something you imagine, actually. But it’s a specific or a specific imagination, a specific moment, that makes the stronger or weaker. So, for example, you have this idea “English painful and boring.” And when you think of this belief, where does it come from?

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

You have to question the experiences. the power away from the experiences. And an easy to do that is just to ask questions about them. For example, let me this question. Your past English schools, were they excellent? they just fantastic English schools with fantastic, amazing, fun, positive English teachers? Did you a great time every day? Well, I know for of you the answer is no. So that’s interesting, if your schools were not excellent, maybe the school the problem. Maybe it’s not you. Maybe your English not great because you did not go to great schools. And did those schools that you to, or the books you used, did they use methods? Did they use research-based methods? Did they know lot about the research about English learning, English teaching? they only use the best methods? Or did they use the textbook that everybody else uses?
Well, know from my experience as a teacher, most schools just the same textbooks. They 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 not choosing the very, best books. And so maybe the reason you believe English is is because you used difficult methods in the past, or your did. Maybe you think English is boring because in past you used boring methods. You went to boring schools. You had boring teachers. English isn’t the problem. Maybe it was these past experiences. Maybe was the way you did it or where you did it. Ask these questions. Think about them in detail. Weaken your limiting beliefs. your limiting beliefs. Another question, in school did you deeply? For example, did you take one chapter in your book and learn it a long time so that you totally mastered it, so you knew it completely, 100% and never forgot it? Probably not, most I have seen and the ones I have taught in, it’s the opposite. The teachers go very, very, very quickly. learn one chapter in your book, boom, after one on to the next one, and the next one. Each has so many new words, so much new grammar.
For example, my experience with Spanish in high school university, I took Spanish, I’ve had a total of maybe two years of Spanish, I forgot it all. Because we never learned deeply. They just tried to make us learn as many as possible, a 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 with a grammar translation method? Did you study a lot of grammar rules? Did take a lot of tests? Did you feel good about that? Again, maybe method was the problem. Maybe the school is the problem, English. So think about these questions and think about them every day. Think them a lot, especially this week as you listen to Lesson Number 4. want you to think about these questions again and and again. And really be honest about it. And start to destroy these beliefs. Get rid of them. They’re wrong. English is not difficult. English is not painful. is not boring. It’s only a belief. It’s only a past experience. You can change that and in the future. So let’s do that.

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

English can fun and effortless. That’s an empowering belief and it’s also true. can think of a lot of examples for this. Some these mini-stories you’re listening to, right? They’re fun. They’re stupid, sometimes. They’re crazy, sometimes. But they’re serious. English can be fun and effortless. That’s an empowering belief you want to choose and you to remember it every day.

And to make these beliefs stronger, need experiences. Remember, you need references, you need examples that prove the belief. So I’m going to give some examples and you can find more. Go find people who English very well. Or maybe even that have learned another language very well. I’ll give one of my favorite examples, Steve Kaufman of The Linguist speaks, I believe, languages now. I want you to find these people and look their beliefs. I’ll tell you 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 English speaker, he speaks Cantonese, he speaks Mandarin, he 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 must learn naturally and you must focus on meaning. So in words, he doesn’t focus on the grammar. He’s not on boring textbooks. He’s reading interesting things that he enjoys. He’s to interesting things that he enjoys. So, for him, language learning interesting. What’s really interesting 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 who learn the fastest, the ones who have the best test scores, the with the best speaking, they all believe these things. all believe that English is fun, interesting and effortless. They all that language learning is natural. They all believe that they should focus 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 need have the same beliefs as 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 I you to do is write down two, three, four beliefs, beliefs that give you power about English. Maybe “My brain a natural language learning machine.” Maybe “English can be and effortless.” Maybe “I love English.” I don’t know, down, two, three, four empowering beliefs about English. And every day you’re going to do an incantation. That’s good word, that’s a new word, incantation.
An incantation a phrase or sentence that you say again and again. It has almost a magic idea, it comes 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 going to repeat again and again and again every day.So here’s what you’re going do. For example “English can be fun and effortless.” You’re to say that out loud every day while you’re walking along and you’re your posture. And you’re breathing and you’re smiling. Well, you’re going to add one more thing. As you walk, you’re getting ready for the lesson, you’re going to repeat out loud. You’re going to say “English can be and effortless.” You’re going to say it with some emotion. Say it with feeling so you’re smiling, you’re deep, you’re moving your body, you have good posture now you’re also saying these strong beliefs. English can fun and effortless. You repeat it again. English can be fun effortless. And then you say it again. English can be fun effortless.

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

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