COIL affords teachers and students an opportunity to interact and collaborate with their overseas counterparts without the need to travel abroad. The COIL component of a course could take three weeks or more, or even the entire semester. The diagram below illustrates the design of the COIL component.
![COIL Collaboration](https://er.talic.hku.hk/coil/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/DesignImplementation-845x684.jpg)
Four phases of COIL implementation
Regardless of the COIL duration, teachers usually go through four phases of implementation.
![Four phases of COIL implementation](https://er.talic.hku.hk/coil/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/DesignImplementation_4Phases_a-1.png)