Aviva Ueno Meiji Gakuin University Dr. Ken Beatty is a TESOL professor at Anaheim University. He has worked in secondary schools and universities in Asia, the Middle East, and North and South America, lecturing on language teaching and computer-assisted language learning from the primary through university levels. He is author of Teaching and Researching Computer-Assisted Language Learning and more than 100 student textbooks, and has given 500+ teacher-training sessions and 100+ conference presentations in 33 countries. He was interviewed by Aviva Ueno, an assistant professor in the Faculty of International Studies at Meiji Gakuin University in Yokohama, Japan. Her main areas of interest are using technology to facilitate language acquisition, maintaining learner motivation and promoting reflective practice. She holds a MA in TESOL from Anaheim University. Aviva Ueno: Dr. Beatty, could…

First, let me leave nothing to the imagination: I hate the Bell Curve. Because I teach assessment statistics to graduate students, I know I shouldn’t callously bully an innocent graph of achievement, but it isn’t the tool itself I object to, but the wicked uses to which it is put. Bad beginnings The Bell Curve was first called “the normal curve of error” by Abraham de Moivre in 1733. He used it to explain games of chance, but by the 19th century, the Bell Curve was being misapplied to justify differences in society such as to support Francis Galton’s theories of eugenics, a pseudo-scientific movement to breed humans to produce a master race. It was only the Nazi party’s horrific love of the idea that led to its belated rejection…