CHAPTER 3 Psychology Is More Important Than Grammar and Vocabulary Most people have suffered
with English for so long they worry there is no solution. Trained by schools to be passive,
fear mistakes, and search for just one right answer, most English learners are stressed
and frustrated. Some feel nearly hopeless. They have spent years in English classrooms.
They have spent years memorizing grammar rules and vocabulary lists. They have spent years
studying for exams such as the TOEFL, IELTS, or TOEIC. Despite all this work and effort,
most English learners are frustrated. Many struggle with even simple conversations. Many
feel nervous any time they must speak English. They have memorized countless grammar rules,
yet even simple conversations feel difficult. Likewise, despite years of study, most learners
still cannot understand American TV or movies. After so many years of traditional learning,
students are confused. When they try to speak, they constantly think about grammar and translations.
First they think of a sentence in their own language, then they translate it to English,
then they think about the grammar, and finally they speak. When they listen, they go through
a similar process. They hear the English, translate it into their own language, think
of a response in their own language, translate their response into English, and then think
about the grammar to be sure their response is correct. No wonder their speech is so slow
and unnatural! No wonder English feels so stressful and difficult! Real conversations
are fast, and it’s nearly impossible to do all of this thinking fast enough, especially
when talking to a native speaker. If you think about translations and grammar during a real
conversation, you will quickly become lost. Instead of listening carefully to the other
person, you’ll be translating your own responses and trying to remember grammar. Your speech
will be hesitant. Often, the other person will become frustrated by your lack of understanding.
Of course, if you see the other person is losing patience, you will usually become even
more nervous. It’s a terrible downward spiral that most English learners know too well.
There is a solution. There is a way to escape the hidden curriculum. There is a road to
English fluency and you can travel on it. You can speak English powerfully. You can
speak English clearly, naturally, and effortlessly. This solution, however, will require you to
completely change your beliefs about education and completely change the way you learn English.
I call the solution the Effortless English™ system and it has two parts: the psychology
and the method. Most schools, most teachers, and most learners focus only on method. In
other words, they are solely focused on the pieces of the English language — vocabulary
and grammar. As we learned in the last chapter, schools primarily use the “grammar translation”
method, with some “communication activities” added. While schools are focused just on method,
they completely ignore the first part of the Effortless English™ system — the psychology.
Yet, psychology is probably the most important element for success with English speaking.
When you think of your own English speaking, you’ll realize that your nervousness, lack
of confidence, and frustration are major problems. How do you change these? Without an effective
psychological system, you will struggle to find success with even the best language teaching
method. Let’s use a story to understand these two important parts of the Effortless
English™ system. Imagine that you are on a road. You are driving on the road to English
fluency. What kind of car would you want? Let’s say all you have to drive is an old
slow car that often breaks down. In addition, you fill this old car with cheap gasoline.
What kind of trip will you have? How fast will you go on this road to fluency? Most
likely, your trip will be slow and frustrating, with frequent breakdowns. In fact, you probably
will not reach your destination. Now, you could put some high quality gas in that old
car, but even then it will likely take you a long time to reach your destination. Better
gas will help a little, but the trip is still likely to be slow and frustrating. Now imagine
instead that you’ll be driving a Formula 1 racing car on this road to fluency. This
car is made for speed and performance. Clearly, it will go faster than the old, slow car.
But what if you fill it up with cheap, low quality fuel? There will likely be problems.
Racing cars need racing fuel or they will not perform well. Obviously, the best situation
would be to put high quality racing fuel into your Formula 1 racing car! With this car and
this fuel, your trip on the road to fluency will be fast and exciting. This is how learning
English works. If you’ve been studying for a while, you know by now that there are all
sorts of systems. Traditional classes at universities. Private lessons from language schools. Online
or packaged software courses. Immersion programs that put you in the country where they speak
the language you’re studying. In other words, you’ve got a lot of different cars to choose
from. Some may be better than others, some may be faster. But even the greatest of these
methods, the Ferrari of language teaching, if you will, needs fuel to make it work. A
method, after all, is only an engine. And if you don’t give an engine the proper fuel,
even a great one won’t work the way you’d like it to. To succeed, you need both quality
fuel and a powerful engine. The right engine + the right fuel = success Obviously, I believe
the right engine would be the Effortless English™ system. What is the fuel? The fuel is your
psychology. It is the beliefs, emotions, and goals that power your learning. Your fuel
is your motivation, your confidence, your energy, your enthusiasm. Your Fuel: Success
Psychology If your psychology is weak, even the best method will fail. In other words,
if you have connected stress, fear, nervousness, and doubt to the process of speaking English
you will have a lot of problems. Unfortunately, this is exactly what happens in most schools.
The tests, the error corrections, and the boring and ineffective methods used in schools
combine to create powerful negative emotions in most students. Even if you’re using my
Effortless English™ method, you must have strong psychology. Unless you bring the proper
emotional energy to the language-learning process, it won’t be enough. The Effortless
English™ system is based upon a success psychology system known as Neuro-Linguistic
Programming, or NLP. Developed by Richard Bandler and John Grinder, NLP is focused on
the psychology of success, high-performance, and motivation. Rather than study mentally
ill people, Bandler and Grinder researched the psychology of the most successful people
in the world. They then created a psychological system designed to help individuals achieve
the highest levels of success and happiness in their lives. What Bandler and Grinder found
was that happy, motivated and energetic people actually learn better. They perform better.
They achieve more success in all aspects of their lives. The opposite is also true: If
you’re feeling bored, stressed, sad, frustrated or even tired, your brain actually functions
more slowly and has a harder time remembering information. Clearly, it is important to connect
positive, rather than negative, emotions to the process of learning and speaking English.
The process of connecting emotions to an experience or process is called anchoring. Anchoring
can be positive or negative. For example, imagine that you listen to a specific song
when you are feeling extremely happy. If the emotion is strong enough, a connection will
be formed between the song and the emotion. And if you are feeling very happy when you
hear the song again, that connection will become stronger. Eventually, you will create
a very strong connection between the song and the feeling of happiness. At that point,
anytime you hear the song you will automatically find yourself feeling happy. That’s what
happens with your favorite songs and that’s great! However, this process also works with
negative emotions. Imagine that you have a stressful experience in English class. Maybe
the teacher corrects one of your errors when you are speaking and you feel embarrassed.
Now imagine that you continue to have a series of negative emotional experiences in English
classes. You frequently feel bored, nervous and stressed while learning and using English.
Eventually, a strong connection forms between English and the negative emotions. This is
a negative anchor. Once this is formed, whenever you try to use English you will automatically
begin to feel more nervous and stressed. This is why many “advanced” English learners
still have so much trouble when trying to speak. Sadly, most learners now have powerful
negative anchors connected to their English speaking. The good news is that negative anchors
can be broken and reprogrammed. This, in fact, is your first step towards speaking English
powerfully. Instead of feeling nervous, imagine if you suddenly and automatically felt powerful
every time you spoke English? What if you automatically felt more excited every time
you learned English? This change alone would improve your speaking. Through the power of
anchoring, you can indeed connect these powerful emotions to English. The secret to breaking
a negative anchor and creating a new positive one is intensity. The more powerful an emotion
is felt (while using English), the faster and deeper the connection. So, to create a
strong positive anchor for English requires a few steps. First, you must create a very
intense positive emotion. Most people believe that emotions are something that happen to
them, but in fact, we create our emotions. It is possible to choose your emotions and
to create them consciously. For example, if you wished to feel tired and sad right now,
what would you do? Let’s start with your body. How would you use your body to create
a tired and sad feeling? Would you pull your shoulders back, or hunch them forward? Would
you look up or down? Would you smile or frown? In fact, by simply changing your body you
would change your feelings. To make yourself feel even worse, you would think about sad
and negative things. Perhaps you would think about a big problem you have, or about a big
regret. And what about your voice? You could moan, cry, or whine, and that would make you
feel even worse. After doing all of the above for a few minutes, you would genuinely begin
to feel sadder and more tired. This is how you consciously can create a negative emotion.
Of course, this process works for positive emotions too, and that is good news! How would
you make yourself feel more excited right now? Again, start with the body. Pull your
shoulders back and push your chest up and out. Bring your head up and look straight
ahead. Put a big smile on your face and hold it. Next, change your thoughts. Think about
something great in your life. Think about the biggest success you have ever had. Think
about your future success speaking English powerfully. Smile bigger. First you are just
pretending, but eventually you will feel stronger and happier. That’s because your emotions
change when your body changes. It’s a simple technique. Of course, you can feel even better
by using your body even more. Instead of just standing and smiling, raise your arms over
your head. Then jump in the air like you are celebrating a big victory. And use your voice.
Shout and cheer loudly as you jump and smile and think of wonderful things. Go crazy! This
is called a “peak emotional state,” an intensely powerful positive emotion. The final
step, of course, is to connect this great feeling to English. So, still feeling great,
immediately start listening to an easy English audio. As you are listening, continue to smile
and move your body in a strong, positive way. Each day, just before you begin learning English,
you will create this peak emotion. As you repeat this process every day, these strong,
positive feelings will become connected to English. Eventually, every time you hear or
use English you will automatically feel energized, positive and excited. You have broken the
old negative anchor and replaced it with a new positive one. And there is more good news.
Research has shown that people who are excited and energized while learning actually learn
more quickly. They remember more and they remember longer. They perform better. In fact,
you will speak English better right now simply by being in a peak emotional state. Creating
this positive anchor to English, therefore, is your first step to faster travel on the
road to fluency. Why Happy Students Learn More Dr. Stephen Krashen, a linguist at the
University of Southern California and one of the top researchers on second language
learning, believes negative emotions act as a filter, reducing the amount of new language
input you’re able to learn. As a result, students who feel bad, anxious or worried
remember less vocabulary and don’t speak as well. Essentially, they learn more slowly.
The best way to counter this, Krashen says, is by keeping students interested, reducing
stress in classrooms and boosting learners’ self-confidence. In one study, researchers
found that when they compared the performance of students who were energized and enjoying
themselves in class with the performance of students who were just being drilled in material,
the energized students did better. The same was true when they tested these students again
at three months and later at six months. I see the same thing in our Effortless English
Club™ community. When you look at our most successful members, you’ll find a common
factor. They are all extremely enthusiastic. They have a lot of energy. They’re very,
very positive. They have very strong positive emotions. When you use peak emotions you can
speak better – right now. Therefore, each and every time you study English, create a
peak emotional state. Change your body and your mental focus in order to create excitement
and positive energy. Build a strong anchor, a strong connection, between English and your
most positive emotions. Heal your English trauma.