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Steven Schuit, BS, MEd, CAGS
English Language Fellow
Daugavpils University, Latvia
e-mail: schuitstephen33@gmail.com
https://orcid.org/0009-0005-1757-4478
Adriane Herman, BA, MFA
Professor of the MFA and Chair of Printmaking,
Coordinator of Public Engagement and Art and Entrepreneurship Minors
Maine College of Art and Design, USA
e-mail: aherman@meca.edu
ABSTRACT
Many teachers face common challenges, including limited resources, low student motivation, and classroom management issues. Teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) is a rewarding profession, but it also presents its own fair share of challenges (Azarov 2025). Effective responses include the professional development of ESL teachers (Schuit et al. 2016), making learning relevant, engaging and fun for students, and incorporating lesson materials that align with student needs. A recently developed technique, the Emotional Values Auction (EVA), may provide ESL teachers with a tool that students find not only interesting, but also emotionally relevant.
This research posed the question: if piloted and formally evaluated, would the EVA process, as indicated by students, demonstrate a significant level of learning and satisfaction? Would the EVA method prove to be an innovative interdisciplinary approach that blends social–emotional learning (SEL) with language skills development? The methodology aims to bridge artbased practices and ESL pedagogy, introducing a novel approach for engaging students both emotionally and linguistically. The piloting of the technique in two different ESL contexts (community members and university staff) provides real-world application evidence. The EVA process incorporates several characteristics of an actual auction: high energy, pressure, intensity, and excitement. It offers teachers in an ESL environment the opportunity to combine emotional subject matter content such as happiness, loss, and generosity with language skill development in the areas of writing, reading, listening, speaking and making presentations. It is a new pedagogic tool ESL teachers can use to make their curricula and classrooms more successful, and lessons more engaging for students.
Keywords: ESL, emotional values auction, social–emotional learning, pedagogic, milieu, comfort zone
How to cite:
Schuit S. and Herman A. (2025). “The Emotional Values Auction: A New English as a Second Language Teaching Methodology, where Skills Meet Emotions.” Journal of Comparative Studies 18 (47), 100-114. https://doi.org/10.59893/jcs.18(47).004
