We are always looking for our COIL students to be able to connect effectively among themselves. Based on this need which we have for our students to be hooked with the dynamics of COIL courses, I have done—with two of my fellow COIL partners—some experiments seeking to bring our students into contact involving their own environments. Our surroundings often define us more than pop culture; a mountain, a river or even an iconic building, will always remind us of the particularities of the place where we are living, and that’s a thing that we always try to share with others. So, by some assignments, we try to put our students into the other's shoes (virtually, of course).
FHWien University of Applied Sciences is a leading university for management and communication in Austria. We work closely with local companies to offer a comprehensive and practice-oriented education for over 2,600 students enrolled in bachelor’s and master’s programs. We first came across the COIL network through a partner university in the Netherlands. So far, we have carried out two COIL courses with our Amsterdam partner, and we are interested in implementing further COIL courses throughout the university. e-Learning and internationalization play a key role in our university’s strategy. Indeed, our university has implemented a set of KPIs to relay their importance. In 2018, we intend to deliver up to 25% of courses in a blended format, and to increase the number of online courses taught together with partner universities. It is for this reason that COIL is of great relevance to us. Target audience: faculty and lecturers, international education managers.
In virtual language immersion, language students collaborate remotely and synchronously with native-speaker peers abroad. These one-on-one discussions recreate an immersion context in the classroom, facilitate language learning and afford language students a multitude of benefits. Several logistical hurdles make organizing these sessions cumbersome. Despite many remote language exchange services, none provide a peer-to-peer classroom exchange. We present benefits, difficulties and best practices of integrating virtual immersion into language classes.
