Opening the Book: Why Don’t Students Like School—or Languages?

Rethinking Language Learning: A Book Club on the Mind, Motivation, and Meaning

Hosted by LARC – Fall 2025 & Winter 2026

Why don’t students like studying a language? What does cognitive science reveal about memory, motivation, and meaning in learning—and how can these insights transform our teaching?

Join us for a five-session book club on Daniel Willingham’s Why Don’t Students Like School? : A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions about How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom 2nd Edition.

Together, we’ll connect research on how the mind works with the aims of a BYU education, asking how we can make language teaching both intellectually enlarging and spiritually strengthening.

4010 JFSB

12:00–12:50 p.m.

• September 17 – Why Don’t Students Like School? & Teaching Skills vs. Teaching Facts (Ch. 1–2)
• October 15 – Why Do Students Forget Lessons but Remember TV? & Why Are Abstract Ideas Hard? (Ch. 3–4)
• November 12 – Is Drilling Worth It? & Thinking Like Experts (Ch. 5–6)
• January 21 – Different Types of Learners & Helping Slow Learners (Ch. 7–8)
• February 18 – Technology & Learning & What About My Mind? + Conclusion (Ch. 9–10)

• Lively discussion of two chapters per session
• Practical connections to foreign language teaching
• Big-picture reflection on how our courses align with BYU’s educational aims
• Community of practice with colleagues who care about meaningful, spiritually strengthening teaching

Book Access: Why Don’t Students Like School? (2nd edition) – EbookCentral link

BYU Aims: aims.byu.edu