Affordances da COIL: análise de uma experiência entre UFES e UAH

Abstract

The main objective of this research study is to reflect about the affordances of the Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) approach to support the internationalization of higher education. More specifically, this study seeks to analyze the affordances perceived by students and professors involved in a COIL experience between two universities of the Global South, namely, the Federal University of Espirito Santo (UFES) in Brazil and the Alberto Hurtado University (UAH) in Chile. Based on notions of decolonial literature such as the ecology of knowledges (SANTOS, 2007a) and the use of English in the Global South (FINARDI, 2019a), the COIL approach was analyzed as a possibility of using different approaches and technologies in the context of the internationalization of higher education. The concept of affordances is used (VAN LIER, 2004) from a sociocultural perspective, with special focus on the notion of mediation (VYGOSTKY, 1978), and critical view of internationalization based on Boaventura Sousa Santos’ (2007a) concept of Epistemologies of the South. In order to analyze the affordances of COIL for virtual academic exchange between two higher education institutions from the Global South, a pedagogical intervention in a COIL format was carried out in the Practicum course of the English Language Course from UFES and in the equivalent discipline of the English Pedagogy Course from UAH in Chile. The methodology is mainly qualitative (CRESWELL, 2012) and, to a lesser extent, autoethnographic (CHANG, 2015) since it analyzes data from the perceptions of students and teachers who participated in the COIL intervention in Brazil and Chile and from the researcher/author’s participant observations. Results suggest that the COIL proposal implemented offers several affordances, among which is a relevant exchange space between universities in general and from the Global South in particular. Results also suggest that the COIL approach offers a low-cost alternative for virtual academic mobility and for internationalization of the curriculum or internationalization at home (IaH), as it turned out to be a relevant possibility to develop students’ intercultural competence since only a few students have a chance to participate in physical academic mobility. On the other hand, the implementation of the COIL proposal between UFES and UAH also highlighted limitations related to infrastructure, academic calendar, technologies used and lack of institutional support. Overall, it was concluded that in order to ensure an active, critical and sustainable internationalization process, the COIL approach needs to be part of the local culture with technical, institutional and academic support (especially from professors) to achieve the benefits identified in the affordances perceived for this approach