Speakers
Description
While COIL offers significant benefits for English language proficiency and intercultural competence, implementation entails substantial challenges. In this presentation, two experienced COIL instructors share insights from COIL projects at Japanese universities. Key challenges include finding compatible partners, managing language anxiety, navigating cultural communication differences, and coordinating logistics. This presentation offers practical strategies for overcoming obstacles while maximizing the benefits of COIL. The audience will be invited to share their own COIL challenges and advice.
Abstract
Collaborative online international learning (COIL) has many benefits for learners, including gains in language proficiency (Remmerswaal et al., 2025), intercultural communicative competence (Hackett et al., 2023), technology literacy (Han & Senyshyn, 2024), and learner autonomy (Ockerman et al., 2023). The presenters are experienced practitioners who have experienced these benefits firsthand. However, discussions of COIL should be realistic in not only touting the benefits, but also tackling the significant challenges of successfully implementing COIL.
In this presentation, we describe projects that we have worked on, with a focus on the challenges and how they were overcome. The first presenter describes her COIL practice, including how she choses her partner teachers and how she requires students to communicate (i.e., asynchronous and synchronous, in-class and out-of-class). The second presenter shares findings from a four-year longitudinal study (2021-2025) examining COIL implementation across three Japanese universities with partners from nine countries, scaling from mini-COIL projects to integrated COIL across multiple courses.
Both presenters discuss challenges such as finding a partner teacher with compatible views, dealing with students who are reluctant to participate or do not meet deadlines, navigating student language anxiety, managing tensions between Japanese students’ indirect communication styles and international partners' varying expectations, coordinating across time zones, and mismatched group sizes.
The main takeaways from this presentation are to provide new and continuing COIL practitioners with knowledge about potential challenges and how to overcome them while reaping the benefits of COIL. The audience is invited to share their own COIL challenges and advice.
Short summary
While COIL offers significant benefits for English language proficiency and intercultural competence, implementation entails substantial challenges. In this presentation, two experienced COIL instructors share insights from COIL projects at Japanese universities. Key challenges include finding compatible partners, managing language anxiety, navigating cultural communication differences, and coordinating logistics. This presentation offers practical strategies for overcoming obstacles while maximizing the benefits of COIL. The audience will be invited to share their own COIL challenges and advice.
Keywords
COIL challenges
Intercultural competence
Language anxiety
Teacher collaboration
References
Hackett, S., Janssen, J., Beach, P., Perreault, M., Beelen, J., & Van Tartwijk, J. (2023). The effectiveness of Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) on intercultural competence development in higher education. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, 20. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-022-00373-3
Han, S., & Senyshyn, R. (2024). Dynamic intercultural learning and collaboration: Transforming language teacher perspectives and practices. Journal for Multicultural Education. https://doi.org/10.1108/jme-07-2024-0081
Ockerman, M., Milani, M., Salvadori, E., & Portera, A. (2023). Global learning experience: Developing intercultural competence through virtual exchange. Education Sciences and Society. https://doi.org/10.3280/ess2-2023oa16402
Remmerswaal, R., Tuncer, H., & Naval, J. (2025). The impact of COIL on EFL learners’ communication competence, anxiety, and soft skills. The JALT CALL Journal. https://doi.org/10.29140/jaltcall.v21n1.2010
| Scheduling preference | Anytime on Saturday |
|---|---|
| Title | Making COIL Work: Addressing the Challenges |