Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

Beliefs are another important part of managing psychology, of strengthening your psychology so that you will learn English, or anything in fact, much faster. And 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 you from going ahead. So a limiting belief is belief that stops you from improving, a belief that stops you getting better. And I’d say most English students have limiting and many English students have very strong limiting beliefs. call these beliefs English trauma and I got that name a few of my Japanese students. They would tell me “AJ, I can’t speak English because I have English trauma.”
What is English trauma? What is that, what they talking about? Well, trauma means some kind of injury, some kind of hurt. hurt, deep emotional hurt. So what they mean is they had some very negative, painful experiences with English 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. all these negative experiences have created some very negative beliefs, very limiting beliefs. For example, they say “I am not good at English.” Well, that’s a belief. It be true, it may not be true. But it’s an opinion, it’s a belief that they have.
belief, a very common belief, English is difficult. Or, English complicated. Well, that’s just a belief. For me English very easy, I’m a native speaker, just like your native language you is very easy. Tomoe can speak Japanese fluently because she’s Japanese, so I might “Japanese is difficult,” and she would say “No, Japanese is super easy.” These are just beliefs 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 problems for us as students, as learners. I have them, too. I try to learn Japanese, for example, I have a of these limiting beliefs I realize. I think “Oh, Japanese is so difficult.” Japanese is complicated, look at the 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. Japanese not have to be difficult, it does not have to compli- cated. A small child, even a small American child, could learn Japanese very effortlessly, very easily. And the is, the number one reason is, they don’t have limiting beliefs. They can sing songs and play games 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, difficult way in the past. And so developed, you created these beliefs in your head. English is difficult. English boring. English is painful. I’m not good at English. I’ll never speak excellent English. are just beliefs.
So how do you eliminate these beliefs? Okay, you have beliefs. You know they’re negative, you know they’re not helping you. But have to figure out, how can we get rid the limiting beliefs? That’s the first step, you have to them. You have to make them weaker and weaker and weaker. You have to them down. Well beliefs get stronger from references. And reference is an experience or 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 belief stronger or weaker. So, for example, have this idea “English is painful and boring.” And when you think of this belief, where does it from?

Well, you think of all these past experiences. You think of the time in middle school where teacher corrected your mistake and you felt terrible. And you think of the bad grades you got on the test or all the red marks on your English papers. you start adding more and 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 at English.” to weaken 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, were excellent? Were they just fantastic English 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 school was the problem. Maybe it’s not you. Maybe English is 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 proven methods? Did they use research-based methods? Did know a lot about the research about English learning, English teaching? Did they only use best methods? Or did they just use the textbook that else uses?
Well, I know from my experience a teacher, most schools just use the same textbooks. 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 choosing the very, very best books. And so maybe the reason you believe is difficult is because you used difficult methods in past, or your teachers did. Maybe you think English is because in the 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 it was the way you it or where you did it. Ask yourself these questions. Think about them in detail. your limiting beliefs. Challenge your limiting beliefs. Another question, in school you learn deeply? For example, did you take one chapter in your book and learn it for long time so that you totally mastered it, so that you knew it completely, 100% and never 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 the next one, and the next one. Each chapter so many new words, so much new grammar.
For example, my experience with Spanish high school and university, I took Spanish, I’ve had a total of maybe two years Spanish, but I forgot it all. Because we never deeply. They just tried to make us learn as words as possible, a lot of words, a lot words, a lot of grammar, very, very fast. And then, of course, I everything. How about you? Did you learn deeply in your schools? If not, maybe that was one of problems. Maybe English feels difficult because you never learned deeply. Maybe English not the problem.
Finally, did 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 the problem. Maybe the school is the problem, not English. So think about questions and think about them every day. Think about them a lot, especially this as you listen to Lesson Number 4. I want you to think about these 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 a past experience. You can change that and in the future. So let’s do that.

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

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

Another belief he is that you must learn language naturally and you must focus on meaning. So in other words, doesn’t focus on the grammar. He’s not focusing on boring textbooks. He’s reading interesting things that enjoys. He’s listening 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 my best students have. They all have these same ideas. The best students, the ones who the fastest, the ones who have the best test scores, the ones with the best speaking, all believe these things. They all believe that English fun, interesting and effortless. They all believe that language learning is natural. They all believe they should focus on the meaning, not on the grammar and the little pieces of language. So if you want to be like these successful people, 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 of this lesson. What I want you to do is write two, three, four empowering beliefs, beliefs that give you power about English. “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” Maybe “English can be fun and effortless.” Maybe “I English.” I don’t know, write down, two, three, four beliefs about English. And every day you’re going to do incantation. That’s a good word, that’s a new word, incantation.
An incantation is a or sentence that you say again and again. It almost a magic 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 comes from. But for an incantation is just a belief you are going to repeat again and again and again day.So here’s what you’re going to do. For example “English can be fun and effortless.” You’re going to say out loud every day while you’re walking along and you’re doing 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 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 deep, you’re moving your body, you have good posture and now you’re saying these strong beliefs. English can be fun and effortless. You it again. English can be fun and effortless. And then you say again. English can be fun and effortless.

You can do this your room and its fine. You can do it and make 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 much faster if you do this. So do these incantations every day just before you do a lesson. your body strong, peak emotional state, and then say these incantations. English can be fun and effortless. can be fun and 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 for “Beliefs.”