A Collaborative Online Learning Activity (COIL) Between Japan and United States of America on Culture and Language Studies

This paper reports on the outcomes of a Collaborative Online International Learning Activity (COIL), conducted between a Japanese and an American university. Both schools gave their students a total of eight weeks of activity. Sixty students from two institutions participated in this study. During each week, students received various cultural topics to discuss, and students from both schools exchanged opinions on Zoom. The Social Networking Approach (SNA) (“3x3+3”) was used to assess students’ competencies: the three content realms contain (1) linguistic; (2) cultural; and (3) global social domains, and within each of these three domains, three different skills: (i) “Can Understand”; (ii) “Can Do”; (iii) “Can Connect”, that need to be developed in language education. Our findings show that Zoom Talk provided a positive experience for the students by facilitating connectivity among the participants. However, Japanese students were more confident in their “can understand” than “can do” skills whereas the American data was entirely positive, making determination difficult.