Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

Beliefs another important part of managing your psychology, of strengthening your psychology so that you will English, or anything in fact, much faster. And there are two kinds of to general categories of beliefs. Limiting and empowering.
Let’s talk about limiting beliefs first. Now means, limit is something that stops you. It’s like a boundary. It you from going ahead. So a limiting belief is belief that stops you from improving, a belief that stops you from getting better. And I’d say English students have limiting beliefs and many English students have very limiting beliefs. I call these beliefs English trauma and got that name from a few of my Japanese students. would tell me “AJ, I can’t speak English well I have English trauma.”
What is English trauma? What that, what are they talking about? Well, trauma means kind of injury, some kind of hurt. Emotional hurt, deep emotional hurt. So they mean is that they had some very negative, painful experiences English in the past. In 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. example, they say “I am not good at English.” Well, that’s belief. It may be true, it may not be true. But it’s an opinion, it’s a belief that have.
Another belief, a very common belief, English is difficult. Or, is complicated. Well, that’s just a belief. For me very easy, because I’m a native speaker, just like native language for you is very easy. Tomoe can Japanese fluently because she’s Japanese, so I might say “Japanese is difficult,” and would say “No, Japanese is super easy.” These are just that come from our experiences. The problem is these limiting beliefs limit us. in fact do limit us. They stop us from
getting better. They cause a lot of problems for as students, as learners. I have them, too. As try to learn Japanese, for example, I have a lot these limiting beliefs I realize. I think “Oh, Japanese is so difficult.” Japanese is complicated, just look 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 not true. Japanese not have to be difficult, it does not have to compli- cated. A small child, even a small American child, could learn Japanese effortlessly, very easily. And the reason is, the number one reason is, they don’t have limiting beliefs. They can sing songs and play games and enjoy language, and they’ll learn it so quickly, so easily, they’ll “Japanese is easy.” Well, it’s the same with English you. You learned in a very painful, difficult way in past. And so you developed, you created these beliefs in head. English is 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 eliminate these beliefs? Okay, you have these beliefs. You know they’re negative, know they’re not helping you. But we have to figure out, how can we get rid of limiting beliefs? That’s the first step, you have to weaken them. You to make them weaker and weaker and weaker. You have to them down. Well beliefs get stronger from references. And is just an experience or a memory. Sometimes it’s just you imagine, actually. But it’s a specific experience or specific imagination, a specific moment, that makes the belief or weaker. So, for example, you have this idea “English is painful boring.” And when you think of this belief, where does it come from?

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

You have to the experiences. Take 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 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 is not great because you did not go to great schools. And did those schools you went to, or the books you used, did they use methods? Did they use research-based methods? Did they know a lot about the research English learning, English teaching? Did they only use the best methods? Or did just 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 them “We must use this book.” But they’re not the very, very best methods. They’re not choosing the very, very best books. And so the reason you believe English is difficult is because you used methods in the past, or your teachers did. Maybe 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 was these past experiences. Maybe it was the way you did it where you did it. Ask yourself these questions. Think about them in detail. your limiting beliefs. Challenge your limiting beliefs. Another question, in school did you learn deeply? For example, did take one chapter in your book and learn it for a time so that you totally mastered it, so that you 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 one chapter in your book, boom, after one week to the next one, and the next one. Each chapter so many new words, so much new grammar.
For example, my experience with in high school and university, I took Spanish, I’ve had total of maybe two years of Spanish, but I it 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, lot of grammar, very, very fast. And then, of course, I forgot everything. How you? Did you learn deeply in your schools? If not, that was one of the problems. Maybe English feels because you never learned deeply. Maybe English is not the problem.
Finally, did you learn with a translation method? Did you study a lot of grammar rules? you take a lot of tests? Did you feel about that? Again, maybe the method was the problem. the school is the problem, not English. So think about these questions and think them every day. Think about them a lot, especially this week as listen to Lesson Number 4. I want you to think about these questions again and again again. And really be honest about it. And start to these limiting beliefs. Get rid of them. They’re wrong. is not difficult. English is not painful. English is not boring. It’s a belief. It’s only a past experience. You can change that now and the future. So let’s do that.

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

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

And to make these beliefs stronger, you need experiences. Remember, you need references, you need examples that prove belief. So I’m going to give you some examples and you 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 my examples, Steve Kaufman of The Linguist speaks, I believe, languages now. I want you to find these people and look at their beliefs. I’ll tell you of his beliefs because he’s a friend, I’ve talked to him a number of times, 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 speaks Russian. 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 he has that you must learn language naturally and you must focus on meaning. in other words, he doesn’t focus on the grammar. He’s not focusing on boring textbooks. He’s reading interesting that he enjoys. He’s listening to interesting things that enjoys. So, for him, language learning is interesting. What’s really interesting 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 all believe these things. They all believe English is fun, interesting and effortless. They all believe that language learning is natural. They all believe that should focus on the meaning, not on the grammar and the little of the language. So if you want to be like these people, you need to think like them. You need to have the beliefs as them.
So here’s what I want you do. Here’s your homework. This is the last thing, the last part of this lesson. I want you to do is write down two, three, four beliefs, beliefs that give you power about English. Maybe “My brain is a language learning machine.” Maybe “English can be fun and effortless.” Maybe “I love English.” I don’t know, down, two, three, four empowering beliefs about English. And day you’re going to do an incantation. That’s a good word, that’s a new word, incantation.
An is a phrase or sentence that you say again and again. It has a magic idea, it comes from magic. An incantation a magical 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 are going to repeat again and again and again every day.So here’s you’re going to do. For example “English can be 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 to add 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 you’re also saying these strong beliefs. English can be fun and effortless. You repeat it again. English be fun and effortless. And then you say it again. can be fun and effortless.

You can do this in your room and its fine. can 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 than 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, then say these incantations. English can be fun and effortless. can be fun and effortless. Now your body, your mind, beliefs, they’re all together, very strong. Then you’re ready learn.

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