“Definitely, it is a great way of testing whether you really understand a topic if you can explain it to someone else in a way that makes sense. It also provides you the opportunity to make international friends and connections and to hear about what they are learning.” “Yes, I would recommend it. It helps with self-confidence and getting the bigger picture of all the work.”
These are but two responses from several received to the question: Would you recommend participating in the Coventry-UFS COIL project to improve skills development areas in accountancy education and why?
Ané Church, Lecturer in the School of Accountancy at the University of the Free State, provided her students with a Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) virtual exchange opportunity with the Coventry University in the United Kingdom in 2023. This initiative with Coventry University – a UFS COIL and iKudu project partner – involves connecting classrooms from institutions in different countries through virtual platforms, developing intercultural dialogue.
Simulating the world of work in a safe space
She lectures Auditing and Corporate Governance to third-year and postgraduate students within the School of Accountancy. In the collaboration with Coventry University, they co-designed a COIL based on role play, where students had to consider whether or not to accept a new audit client and then perform a risk assessment of the client. During this exercise, the students from the UFS assumed the role of audit partners, while their counterparts from Coventry took on the role of audit trainees. Throughout the process, the UFS students led online meetings, offering guidance to the Coventry students on what to consider and how to effectively carry out these assessments.
Church believes that in the real world of auditing, trainees and managers must coach/train each other. “It is an important skill to develop, which addresses leadership skills, communication skills, and digital skills,” she says.
How Church and her Coventry partner, Tasneem Joosub, designed and offered the COIL was unique, as it made use of gamified learning through role play. She is of the opinion that role play helps to simulate the world of work and it could also provide a safe place for students who are a bit shy, as you can ‘pretend to be someone else’.
Chevon Slambee, responsible for Strategic Projects and Virtual Engagement and the iKudu Project Manager in the Office for International Affairs at the UFS, is excited about Church’s COIL that aligns with the strategic objectives of the International Office, which are inclusive internationalisation, promoting workplace readiness, and cultivating employability skills. Slambee believes that Church has employed an innovative way to teaching, using gamified learning and role play. Teaching in this way and in the virtual classroom is a really good way to strengthen and cultivate intercultural communication and allows students the confidence to fully participate in a safe space. “Students who are, for instance, introverts, who would not have participated in a physical full class, also engaged and were active in their learning process.”
COIL adding value and broadening students’ perspectives
Church was also invited to attend the Female Voices in COIL conference and the subsequent iKudu engagements, which took place at Coventry University in the UK in March this year. Not only was this her first contact with the iKudu project, which developed a contextualised South African concept of Internationalisation of the Curriculum (IoC); Church also had the opportunity to present at the conference. Her presentation was titled ‘Enhancing skills development through COIL’ and focused on how pervasive skills and graduate attributes can be developed through COIL projects, especially when role play is involved.
About her experience of the conference, Church says that she was particularly fascinated by a presentation by Prof Jos Beelen, who spoke about different pedagogies in COIL, which included the pedagogies of hope, heart, and discomfort.
“The conference was really eye-opening, and I got to see so much more benefits of internationalisation of the curriculum. The Accountancy programmes in which I am involved are really very full and there is not a lot of space for ‘extras’, but I do think that at least one COIL project per year can add tremendous value to broadening students’ perspectives and get them ready for the real world of work,” remarks Church, who will be participating in Coventry’s upcoming International Audit Week, which will take place in November.
Women’s voices and COIL as a third space
A strong focus of the conference was knowledge produced by women. Prof Lynette Jacobs, Acting Director of the Office for International Affairs at the UFS – who also attended the conference and who is involved in a research project on women’s voices in COIL with colleagues from Coventry University and the Federal University of Espírito Santo – says that the research, based on data generated through interviews with female stakeholders based in higher-education (HE) institutions, aims to further the understanding of digital inclusion and equality in HE. “It investigates COIL as a third space that promotes substantive equality and supports the integration of global citizenship attributes into HE curricula. In particular, it seeks to decentre the conceptualisation of ‘Internationalisation of the Curriculum (IoC)’ and open up ‘otherwise’ ways of knowing, being, and relating through a decolonial lens that builds on knowledge produced by women,” comments Prof Jacobs.
A number of discussions took place around the topic of female voices. Students reflected on their COIL experience in terms of an equal, diverse, and inclusive learning space for women. One of the students, Preeti Suri from India, stated that engaging with COIL made her feel valued and her voice heard in this third space that bridges geographical and cultural boundaries, expands knowledge from diverse perspectives, and fosters digital literacy, communication, and teamwork. Women who used COIL in their practice also shared their reflections on their experience. Nomfundo Khoza from the Central University of Technology reported on her COIL experience and said that “the COIL-VE third space offers a compelling model for enriching educational experiences through virtual collaboration and intercultural engagement”.