Enacting Inclusive Student-Centered Pedagogies Through Project-Based Learning: Developing Conference Skills in International EAP Contexts

Abstract

The paper explores the implementation of inclusive, student-centered pedagogies in an internationally co-taught EAP course. Designed within the Erasmus+ W.I.D.E. framework, the course brought together students from Italy and Israel to collaboratively work on academic conference presentations delivered in English as a lingua franca. The study employs an Action Research and Case Study approach, allowing iterative cycles of planning, implementation, observation, and reflection to inform pedagogical decisions. This embraces three intersecting priorities in contemporary higher education: preparing students for global academic participation, fostering inclusive and supportive learning environments, and cultivating intercultural competence in digitally mediated settings. More specifically, drawing on a project-based teaching framework, the study examines how students are socialized into academic discourse through delivering presentations, engaging in intercultural dialogue, and developing cross-curricular soft skills. Our findings suggest that project-based work in small multicultural teams can support both autonomy and cooperation, while contributing to the development of critical thinking, mediation and confidence in public speaking, essential for participation in international academic communities. The findings also point to the potential role of responsive and compassionate pedagogy in digital collaboration. The study offers a practice-informed model that may be adaptable to similar contexts for bridging EAP and international research practices, highlighting implications for intercultural academic communication, virtual mobility, and inclusive language education.

1. Introduction

1.1. Rethinking English for Academic and Professional Communication

University education today has reached a dynamic crossroads. On the one hand, we are embracing a growing understanding of a more inclusive, student-centered approach, one that acknowledges the diverse backgrounds, interests, and aspirations students bring into the university classroom (Barnett & Felten, 2016; Oleson, 2021). On the other, we see increasing participation in international academic mobility, with students and faculty collaborating across borders in both physical and virtual spaces (Shen et al., 2022; Granato et al., 2024). Together these two forces are reshaping how we teach, communicate, and co-construct knowledge (O’Dowd, 2023; Zbenovich et al., 2024).

In this context, the role of English in the university has also evolved. No longer just a subject of a foreign language for academic purposes (EAP), English as a lingua franca has now become indispensable for cross-university interaction, and plays an important role in enabling participation in global academic communities (Mansfield & Poppi, 2012; Ambele & Boonsuk, 2021; Franco, 2021; Yu & Liu, 2022; Cahyadi & Fitriyah, 2024). It is a tool not only for accessing knowledge, but for actively shaping and sharing it, especially through multilingual collaborations (Kuo, 2006; MacKenzie, 2014; Guerra, 2018), although there are differing opinions (Groom, 2012). Further research showed that while some online tools can effectively support constructivist, collaborative language learning, students’ actual collaboration patterns depend on contextual factors, such as alternative communication channels and in-person meetings, which shape how, when, and with whom they choose to interact (Zorko, 2009; Octaberlina, 2023). In our work, we sought to respond to these emerging realities.

The CEFR-CV (Council of Europe, 2018) emphasizes that students must be able to “do things” through language, refer to problems and data in a foreign language, be prepared to work with people as peers and partners, collaborate in research projects and work as a team. Collaborative work in an international setting may present significant challenges for various categories of students (Straker, 2020). As Becker (2014) notes, academic presentation and dialogue require specialized linguistic competences: precise terminology, clear structuring, effective signposting, and the ability to paraphrase, reformulate, and mediate meaning in real time.

Telecollaboration as a means of fostering intercultural exchange online (Dooly & O’Dowd, 2018) amplifies these demands. Without the support of shared physical space—gesture, immediate clarification, spontaneous alignment—students must rely more heavily on linguistic strategies to manage turn-taking, signal stance, repair misunderstandings, and sustain engagement across digital platforms. These challenges create high cognitive load and demand pragmatic sensitivity, especially for non-native English users working in culturally diverse teams. Digital environments also introduce delays, connectivity issues, and reduced access to nonverbal cues, which further intensify the linguistic work learners must perform. As a result, successful telecollaborative learning requires explicit scaffolding of linguistic clarity, adaptability, monitoring, and negotiation of meaning—competences that must be intentionally integrated into EAP/EPIC course design.

Given these linguistic and communicative demands, it is perhaps unsurprising that telecollaboration, despite its pedagogical promise, remains unevenly implemented in higher education. Despite its long history in language education, telecommunication remains underused, partly because teachers lack accessible models of successful practice. Our project responds to that gap by presenting a case study from practicing teachers and students, highlighting real-world telecollaborative interactions, their challenges, and effective solutions. We will also discuss how telecollaboration fits within broader debates on methods, methodologies, and approaches, ultimately framing it as an approach grounded in socio-cultural and constructivist principles. Overall, the study underscores the pedagogical potential of telecollaboration while emphasizing the need for informed teacher design, sequencing, and scaffolding to ensure meaningful learning outcomes.

At the same time, our project also foregrounded soft skills, including teamwork, adaptability, empathy, emotional intelligence, and audience awareness which are indispensable in contemporary academic settings. These abilities became especially central in the multilingual, telecollaborative environment, where students had to navigate ambiguity, manage interpersonal dynamics, support peers, and negotiate meaning across cultural boundaries. These intersecting challenges highlight the need for functional, research-informed models that demonstrate how inclusive, intercultural, project-based telecollaboration can be effectively implemented in EAP contexts.

Our research questions were therefore as follows:

• How can non-English majors be supported in developing confident and collaborative academic communication?
• How can English classroom tasks be designed to mirror authentic academic and professional communicative practices?
• What specific communicative demands characterize such academic and professional contexts?

By addressing these questions, the study aims to deepen our understanding of how inclusive, intercultural, and project-based pedagogies can be integrated within telecollaborative EAP courses. In doing so, it offers a practical model for preparing students to participate more confidently and competently in international academic communication.

1.2. Theoretical Background

Engineering education has evolved toward a stronger emphasis on communication skills, driven by globalization, international accreditation standards, and industry expectations. Professionals are often called to give conference presentations, which can be either an exciting chance to share knowledge or a source of stress for those less confident. Effective presentations rely on thoughtful preparation, clear and well-designed slides, and a focus on key messages that maximize audience engagement and practical takeaways (Hatchett, 2024).

The study by Apridayani et al. (2024) found that Thai university students lack confidence in their English presentation skills and face several challenges when presenting online, including anxiety, reduced nonverbal communication, and difficulty engaging audiences and managing questions. Despite the convenience of virtual presentations, students preferred face-to-face delivery because it offers immediate interaction, real-time teacher feedback, and supportive peer environments, all of which help them develop as proficient presenters. Their preference is also driven by a desire to improve oral communication skills for academic and professional contexts. The findings highlight the need for pedagogical strategies that balance both modes, provide targeted training, enhance digital presentation competence, and address students’ motivational factors.

A course designed by Asadnia and Atai (2022) helped researchers develop essential academic communication skills, but highlighted the need for continued, longitudinal support, digital resources, and authentic practice opportunities under EAP mentors. The study underscores the importance of technology-enhanced instructional design, collaborative material development, and comprehensive EAP teacher training, while proposing future research directions in flipped learning, multimodal corpora, and academic communication training.

While written communication has long been systematically taught, oral communication—especially in second-language contexts—remains difficult to teach and evaluate despite its recognized importance. These challenges are often implemented through task-based and project-based learning, which view language acquisition as the outcome of meaningful engagement with communicative tasks, where learners use language to achieve goals that resemble real-world use (East, 2021). Recent research shows that pro-ject-based work strengthens motivation, critical thinking, and digital literacy while deepening reflection, and promoting active engagement with content (Scott-Monkhouse et al., 2021; Davidson, 2022). Longer projects, such as preparing conference presentations, require learners to negotiate meaning, make decisions, analyze information, and coordinate teamwork using English for authentic communicative purposes. At the same time, project-based work is shaped by contradictions in activity systems (e.g., uneven roles, time pressure, resistance to target-language norms), which influence engagement and outcomes (Gibbes & Carson, 2014). The requirement to present to real audiences—teachers, peers, or external listeners—further increases authenticity and supports the development of pragmatic, paraverbal, and multimodal communication skills essential to academic and professional domains.

Of equal importance is the growing emphasis on inclusive and student-centered pedagogies, particularly within multilingual and multicultural learning environments. Rather than treating diversity as a challenge to be managed, inclusive approaches view it as a resource that enriches learning and strengthens classroom communities (Oleson, 2021). Closely linked to inclusion is the broader shift toward student-centered education, which places greater responsibility on learners, encourages autonomy, collaboration, and reflection, and frames knowledge as socially constructed rather than simply transmitted. This approach reflects contemporary theories of learning as socially situated, mediated by peers and tools (Collins & O’Brien, 2003), and highly responsive to personal experience (Hoidn & Reusser, 2020; Murphy et al., 2021). In language education, such pedagogy supports not only linguistic development but also growth in confidence, agency, and intercultural openness.

Telecollaborative environments further extend this approach by creating distinctive conditions for intercultural growth. As cultural differences become more visible and consequential in EAP contexts with geographically dispersed learners (Dooly & O’Dowd, 2018), students are required to engage in communicative practices that intersect directly with academic communication: addressing culturally diverse audiences, interpreting limited nonverbal cues, adjusting register sensitively, and managing disagreement or critique in ways that preserve both clarity and rapport.

A further dimension of contemporary EAP is the socialization of undergraduates into research. Even when students are not conducting empirical studies, tasks such as reading academic sources, preparing presentations, and providing peer feedback familiarize them with discourse patterns, epistemic norms, and communicative conventions central to academic practice (Bland & Atweh, 2007; Hu et al., 2007; Gao et al., 2025). Early encounters with these practices help cultivate an emerging scholarly identity and prepare learners for participation in international research communities, where English as a lingua franca is often the primary medium.

Taken together, these theoretical frameworks stress the importance of designing and analyzing EAP courses that are not only inclusive, student-centered, and task-driven, but also research-oriented and intercultural. While each pedagogical strand has been well described in the literature, fewer studies explore how they can be integrated into a single model—particularly within small, international groups working entirely online. It is at precisely this intersection that our contribution lies.

We offer an analysis of a pedagogical model that supports real academic participation, prepares students for international collaboration, and fosters their development as both novice researchers and global partners. We argue that students’ linguistic competence develops most effectively at the crossroads of authentic academic inquiry, inclusive teaching practices, and intercultural experience. In this study, we bring these strands together through an integrated framework that connects intercultural competence and research socialization within telecollaborative EAP practice.

To clarify the research gap and the contribution of the proposed framework, this study situates inclusive student-centered pedagogy within the underexplored intersection of engineering-oriented higher education and EAP contexts. While student-centered approaches are well established in general pedagogy, their operationalization in multilingual, telecollaborative academic communication, particularly for non-English majors in disciplinary settings, remains insufficiently theorized. The framework adopted here functions not merely as a teaching philosophy but as an analytic lens linking task-based design, intercultural mediation, and research socialization. By examining how these elements interact within authentic academic simulation, the study addresses a gap in understanding how inclusive pedagogies can be systematically enacted and empirically examined in professional EAP environments. The sections that follow outline the research design and demonstrate how this integrated framework was implemented and analyzed in practice.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Sites of Research

The online course “Conference Skills: Academic Presentations Online” was developed within the Erasmus+ joint international W.I.D.E. (Widening International Didactics and Education) project and implemented between two higher education institutions: a university in Italy and an academic college in Israel. The participating students reflected the disciplinary and linguistic diversity typical of contemporary international classrooms. The Italian group consisted of two doctoral students from engineering programs, primarily Civil Engineering and Industrial Engineering. They were advanced users of English, accustomed to reading technical literature but with limited experience in oral academic presentations in English. The Israeli group consisted of three 3rd-year undergraduate students from applied sciences and social sciences (Biotechnology; Politics and Communication). At the academic college, English is taught as part of a structured, CEFR-aligned curriculum designed to support academic reading and writing, but students typically receive limited exposure to spoken academic genres, intercultural communication, or research-related oral tasks. For most of these students, English is not a major subject but a required academic support module, and the shift toward conference-style communication represented a meaningful pedagogical extension. This disciplinary and educational contrast—doctoral engineering students and undergraduate applied science and communication students—created a productive yet carefully balanced learning environment.

English proficiency across the group corresponded to CEFR B2, ensuring functional communicative competence while still allowing space for growth in pragmatic and presentation skills.

2.2. Methods

The present study combined an instrumental case study and action research methodology to investigate student learning and intercultural collaboration within a bounded, real-life educational setting: the online project-based course “Conference Skills: Academic Presentations Online”, in which students from Italy and Israel worked in small international teams to prepare presentations and deliver them in a simulated academic conference environment (Merriam & Tisdell, 2015; Yin, 2017; Scott-Monkhouse, 2023a). The case study approach allows for a holistic, in-depth exploration of how learners develop academic speaking skills, engage in feedback processes, and manage intercultural teamwork over the duration of the course. Data such as course artifacts, presentation recordings, peer feedback exchanges, and student reflections are analyzed to understand how the course design shapes learners’ experiences, competences, and attitudes (Creswell, 2012).

Simultaneously, the study is grounded in action research, as the course designer and instructor systematically examined their own pedagogical practice with the aim of improving instruction (Kemmis et al., 2014; Burns, 2019). The action research cycle involved planning (designing the telecollaborative tasks), acting (implementing the course over several weeks), observing (collecting ongoing data about student participation, challenges, and progress), and reflecting (evaluating outcomes and identifying areas for refinement). Because the course was part of a broader international teaching innovation project, the action research perspective enabled the instructor to iteratively adjust materials, task sequencing, and feedback mechanisms to better support learning, intercultural communication, and academic presentation competence. This dual approach enables a comprehensive understanding of both what happens during telecollaborative academic speaking training and how pedagogical practices can be enhanced based on systematic evidence.

2.3. Data Corpus and Sources

The corpus included: (a) seven semi-structured pre-course interviews (30–45 min), audio-recorded with consent and summarized in analytic memos; (b) six Zoom session recordings (five instructional sessions and one final presentation) with instructor field notes documenting participation patterns and pedagogical adjustments; (c) course artifacts, including evolving slide decks, drafts, and bibliographies; (d) written peer feedback and post-presentation forms; and (e) post-course reflections collected via Google Forms (Likert-scale items and open-ended responses), supplemented by institutional evaluation comments.

We conducted a reflexive thematic analysis informed by social constructivism, inclusive pedagogy, intercultural communicative competence (including ELF perspectives), and project-based research socialization (Creswell & Poth, 2018; Miles et al., 2020; Braun & Clarke, 2021). These lenses guided interpretation by foregrounding learning as socially mediated action within collaborative activity systems; attention to affect, access, and responsiveness in diverse cohorts; mediation and accommodation strategies in multilingual academic communication; and conference presentation work as an authentic knowledge-building practice inducting students into academic discourse. These theoretical strands informed constructs in our coding scheme (e.g., autonomy, collaboration, mediation, audience design, inclusive responsiveness, intercultural communicative awareness, research socialization moves).

We used a mixed deductive–inductive approach. Initial codes were derived from the conceptual framework and research questions (e.g., intercultural negotiation, feedback literacy, audience awareness), followed by inductive coding to capture emergent patterns (e.g., emotional reassurance, disciplinary perspective clashes, pragmatic repair).

Interviews, reflections, peer feedback, and field notes were coded iteratively, while recordings and slide revisions served as multimodal evidence of linguistic and pragmatic development. Two researchers co-coded a stratified sample to calibrate interpretations and refine the shared codebook through discussion and consensus. The codebook was revised iteratively as themes were consolidated into broader analytic categories. Credibility was supported through triangulation across interviews, artifacts, recordings, and reflections, as well as analyst triangulation during co-coding. An audit trail (analytic memos, codebook versions, and linked excerpts) documented the analytic process. Reflexive notes addressed our dual instructor–researcher role. A brief thematic summary was shared with participants after the course (light member checking). Given the small cohort, survey results are reported descriptively and interpreted alongside qualitative evidence. Themes were developed iteratively and continuously checked against the dataset to ensure grounding in empirical material.

2.4. Ethics

The project aimed at improving academic presentation skills, intercultural competence, and digital literacy. All students had equal access to resources, including technology, guidance, and assessment opportunities. We avoided disadvantaging students due to language proficiency, time zones, or differing cultural expectations. As the course involved intercultural collaboration, ethical practice required recognizing cultural differences in communication, learning preferences, and feedback styles. Online tools used collected no unnecessary personal data, and all data storage complied with privacy laws (e.g., GDPR for European participants). Any potential harm (e.g., stress or anxiety from performance evaluations) was mitigated by providing supportive feedback and scaffolding. All students participated voluntarily and freely expressed their opinions in feedback and reflections. As the project involved regular classroom activities within an open course and did not include tests, experiments, interventions, interviews, or the collection of sensitive personal data, separate written consent was not required for this low-risk educational study. Students were informed that any use of course-related feedback, reflections, and learning materials for research would be voluntary, anonymized, and could be withdrawn without any academic repercussions. Any student data collected was anonymized to prevent identification of individuals.

3. Project Description

3.1. Planning and Preparation

The project emerged from ongoing professional collaboration between the instructors and was shaped by recurrent discussions around three central facets of the course design:

-

Task- and project-based learning, grounded in the belief that authentic, inquiry-driven tasks foster deeper engagement and linguistic development;

-

Inclusive and student-centered pedagogy, emphasizing the creation of emotionally supportive environments for learners from diverse cultural, academic, and personal backgrounds, particularly in a year marked by crisis in Israel;

-

Intercultural communication, highlighting the need to prepare students to collaborate across cultures, negotiate meaning, and respond sensitively to varied communicative expectations.

After obtaining formal approval from the international offices of both institutions, we had six two-hour online meetings between January and March 2024 to refine the course concept, followed by an onsite meeting in Italy to finalize the syllabus. These conversations built on relevant pedagogical theories and also on our previous telecollaborative work in engineering and academic English (Scott-Monkhouse et al., 2021). Our discussions focused on creating an optimal learning environment for both Italian and Israeli students, each group bringing distinct cultural backgrounds, learning styles, and personal challenges. Recognizing the role of inclusive dynamics in fostering reflection, engagement, and belonging, we placed particular emphasis on student-centered teaching when working with a small international cohort. The syllabus was built around the idea that linguistic competence develops at the intersection of authentic academic inquiry, inclusive teaching practices, and intercultural experience.

Through this process, we developed a model integrating research socialization, intercultural competence, and project-based communication training into a single short course. The W.I.D.E. Project: Conference Skills—Academic Presentations Online vs. Onsite was initially proposed within the Erasmus+ program in July 2023 by the Italian partner. After administrative procedures were completed, the course was scheduled to begin in May 2024. The original plan combined an online phase with an onsite exchange in Italy and Israel, where students would present their work face-to-face. However, following the outbreak of war in Israel in October 2023 the onsite component was canceled, and the online phase was extended to encompass the entire course. In response, we re-designed the syllabus to include virtual presentation delivery and additional online intercultural communication training.

The project’s primary aim was to support students in developing conference skills and English-medium academic presentation competence in a multicultural environment. The course also functioned as a site of research socialization: students engaged with academic discourse conventions, explored topic-relevant sources, and began shaping emerging scholarly identities. Mixed-level pairing (third-year undergraduates and PhD students) proved beneficial as the doctoral students modeled research-oriented inquiry, helping to balance the groups and stimulate productive collaboration.

At its core, the project sought to cultivate belonging, participation, and respect for difference, and was framed as preparation for participation in international academic communities (Byram & Wagner, 2018; Helm & Beaven, 2021) through authenticity, student agency, and meaningful task engagement. By working in international teams, students developed key 21st-century competencies and linked language learning to broader goals of lifelong learning and employability-related competencies. Working in culturally diverse teams allowed students to encounter both the linguistic and intercultural dimensions of communication in authentic, applied ways. The sessions on intercultural communication were intended to help students interact more effectively in multicultural settings and to highlight the role of English as a lingua franca in academic and professional contexts (Cameron, 2000; Bonvillain, 2020; Zbenovich, 2023; Zbenovich et al., 2024).

3.2. Pre-Course Interviews and Project Repositories

Recruitment for the course took place through official announcements at both institutions. Selection was based on academic background, English proficiency, and motivation, and all prospective participants were interviewed individually. All students corresponded to approximately a B2 level on the CEFR scale. The interviews served several intertwined purposes: they allowed us to estimate students’ spoken English and aca-demic confidence; to understand their expectations and previous presentation experience; to identify anxieties, past teamwork dynamics, and future goals; and to evaluate their readiness for intercultural and project-based collaboration. In addition, the interviews helped us form balanced international teams that could work effectively together. Indeed, the students’ responses revealed a shared desire for practical speaking experience, increased confidence, and a broader international academic perspective—factors that subsequently informed the pacing and focus of the course. In Italy, two applicants ultimately joined the project, while in Israel three students were finally selected.

To support the organizational and pedagogical structure of the project, a Moodle site was created at both institutions to host course materials, including slides, readings, exemplars, and weekly tasks. However, for security reasons students were granted access only to their own university platform, which prevented full synchronization of the two Moodle sites. To address this limitation, we also developed a shared MS OneDrive repository to facilitate cross-institutional collaboration. This space enabled students to upload drafts, co-edit presentation slides, and store bibliographic and visual materials.

3.3. Work with Students: Orientation and Required Competences

The 90 min opening session of the course introduced students to the structure of the project and outlined the competences they would need to develop in order to participate effectively in an international academic environment. We framed these as interconnected elements of academic communication and collaborative inquiry. Students were expected to demonstrate growing competence in the following:

• Planning and structuring a research-informed academic presentation;
• Synthesizing and critically engaging with sources;
• Collaborating in small multilingual teams;
• Adopting an appropriate academic register and communicative style;
• Integrating visuals and multimodal elements into their presentations;
• Using English for mediation, clarification, and negotiation of meaning;
• Offering and receiving constructive feedback;
• Demonstrating intercultural awareness and sensitivity in group work.

We emphasized that the project extended beyond the practical aspect of learning how to present in English: it aimed to support students in positioning themselves as emerging members of an international academic community. For this reason, attention was drawn early to the soft skills required for successful collaboration—adaptability, empathy, and conflict management—which were presented as integral components of academic participation. These competences later informed the analytic coding scheme used in the Section 4.

4. Results

The following section presents empirical findings derived from reflexive thematic analysis of interviews, session recordings, field notes, presentation artifacts, peer feed-back, and post-course surveys. Data were triangulated across sources. Given the small cohort (n = 5 completing students), survey data are reported descriptively and interpreted alongside qualitative excerpts.

4.1. Theme 1: Task-Based Preparation and Audience-Oriented Academic Communication

The course was organized around two thematic projects—Ethical Issues in AI and AI in Education—through which students developed practical competence in academic presentation. The emphasis in this part was on communicative execution: how to prepare, structure, and deliver content effectively to an international audience with varied disciplinary backgrounds.

Initial drafts often relied on extended explanations and assumed shared background knowledge. Through guided tasks (analysis of presentation models, rehearsal, peer critique, and Q&A simulations) students refined pacing, sequencing, and multi-modal design. They learned to reduce cognitive overload, foreground key points, and signal transitions more explicitly. For example, the AI in Education team reorganized material to introduce central contrasts before presenting supporting detail, while the Ethical Issues in AI team clarified distinctions between ethical risks and policy responses.

Preparation for live questioning strengthened rhetorical agility. During Q&A sessions, students demonstrated increasing control over real-time interaction. Beyond hedging, they engaged in repair and clarification strategies typical of academic dialogue. When explanations became overly technical, presenters reformulated: “Let me put that differently…” followed by simplified phrasing. The scope was clarified through statements such as “I am referring specifically to higher education contexts,” preventing misinterpretation. Negotiation moves were also observable: “I see your point, but our focus is on long-term implications,” reframed disagreement without confrontation, while clarification questions—“Do you mean economic or ethical impact?”—signaled attentiveness and precision.

By the final session, both teams demonstrated stronger coherence, clearer visual hierarchy, and more deliberate alignment between topic focus and audience expectations. The trajectory across drafts and live exchanges reflects development in task execution, rhetorical delivery, and interactional management within an intercultural academic setting.

4.2. Theme 2: Emergent Research Identities Through Inquiry-Driven Tasks

Beyond structural improvements in presentation discourse, the project fostered the emergence of research-oriented identity through sustained engagement with inquiry-driven tasks. Students were required not only to present information clearly but to con-struct claims grounded in evidence and position their arguments within broader scholarly conversations.

The final presentations demonstrated purposeful integration of sources. The teams developed explicit claim–evidence–implication sequences rather than descriptive overviews. For instance, the AI in Education presentation included annotated references alongside an infographic summarizing both the benefits and limitations of adaptive learning systems. The Ethical Issues in AI team combined survey data on perceived social impacts with balanced, research-informed recommendations. These features indicate movement toward evidence-based reasoning.

Instructional framing emphasized that academic presentations function as acts of knowledge mediation structured around aims, findings, and implications. Through peer critique and Q&A exchanges, students were required to justify claims and respond to challenges. Although they did not conduct empirical studies, they engaged in research-like practices: sourcing the literature, evaluating data, synthesizing perspectives, and defending positions.

Viewed through the lens of research socialization (Bland & Atweh, 2007; Hu et al., 2007), these developments reflect engagement in core scholarly practices: delimiting scope, selecting and evaluating sources, weighing contrasting viewpoints, and formulating reasoned conclusions. Students did not carry out original empirical studies, yet the inquiry-driven format required them to position their claims within existing knowledge frameworks.

Reflections suggest an accompanying shift in self-perception. One participant noted, “It was the first time I really felt I was part of an international academic conversation.” This comment signals movement toward epistemic agency—recognizing oneself as capable of contributing informed perspectives rather than merely transmitting information.

4.3. Theme 3: Intercultural Awareness and Mediation in Team Communication

The intercultural strand combined conceptual framing with reflective, experience-based practice. Rather than prescribing communicative rules, tasks were designed to foster noticing and negotiation in context. Intercultural competence was approached as a dynamic process grounded in observation, empathy, and adjustment.

The process began with a scene from Lost in Translation (Coppola, 2003), prompting students to identify how differences in language, pacing, and expectation disrupt meaning-making. Drawing on Neuliep’s (2021) definition of culture, students examined how norms of directness, emotional expression, and professionalism shape interactions. These discussions quickly moved into practice: teams noticed differences in communicative styles—including expectations for “professional enthusiasm”—and negotiated shared presentation tone and turn-taking cues.

Mediation became particularly visible during collaborative tasks (Council of Europe, 2018, p. 104). A field note from a visual design session documents a discussion in which an Italian doctoral student advocated technical precision in a graph, while an Israeli student prioritized accessibility. The team negotiated a compromise, retaining detailed data in an appendix while foregrounding a simplified version on the main slide.

Survey data corroborate this development. Perceived ability to adapt communication for intercultural audiences averaged M = 4.4/5, and one participant reflected, “I became more aware of when to clarify assumptions and when to soften claims for a mixed audience.”

Intercultural awareness was also embedded in the final presentations, where teams addressed the cross-cultural implications of AI and framed recommendations in balanced, accessible terms. Overall, intercultural competence emerged as enacted practice—visible in noticing, negotiation, and communicative adjustment—rather than as abstract knowledge about cultural difference.

4.4. Theme 4: Student-Centered Pedagogy in Practice

The student-centered orientation of the course was expressed not only in task design but in relational teaching practices. Inclusive pedagogy became particularly visible in moments requiring affective scaffolding. In one session, an Israeli student joined class visibly distressed due to a personal loss during a period of national crisis. The instructors adapted the session in real time, reallocating tasks and offering asynchronous participation options. The student later reflected that he felt “supported, understood, and encouraged to continue.” This episode illustrates how compassionate responsiveness functioned as a condition for sustained engagement rather than an interruption of learning.

Student reflections suggest a shift in the balance between anxiety and enjoyment. Participants described the course as “demanding in a good way” and “confidence-building,” indicating movement from initial apprehension toward engaged challenge. Retrospective self-ratings of presentation confidence increased.

These findings resonate with research on crisis-responsive online pedagogy (Rapanta et al., 2020; Scott-Monkhouse, 2023b) and with the notion of “panic-gogy” as a pedagogy of kindness and critical compassion (Kamenetz, 2020). In this context, effective instruction required flexible pacing, emotional sensitivity, and recognition that academic development is inseparable from social and psychological conditions.

Student-centered learning was further reinforced through small-team collaboration. Students assumed increasing responsibility for decision-making, material selection, and knowledge construction. Negotiation of roles, leadership, and compromise reflected project-based and action-oriented approaches (East, 2021; Scott-Monkhouse et al., 2021). Instructors shifted between facilitation and guidance, supporting autonomy while maintaining structure. This balance fostered motivation, cooperation, and confidence, aligning with contemporary models of knowledge co-construction in higher education (Hoidn & Reusser, 2020; Murphy et al., 2021).

Overall, inclusive, compassionate pedagogy functioned as both relational practice and structural design, enabling participation, persistence, and measurable gains in confidence within an intercultural learning environment.

4.5. Theme 5: Agency and Collaboration Through Project-Based Teamwork

A central outcome of the project was the development of learner agency through sustained, project-based teamwork. Much of this growth occurred beyond formal class time. Students independently organized Zoom meetings, coordinated via WhatsApp, and used shared digital platforms to co-edit slides, refine visuals, and compile bibliographies. These self-initiated efforts became an integral part of the course’s learning ecology (Barron, 2006; Ranieri et al., 2019), gradually shifting responsibility from the instructor to the team.

Across the course, there was observable change in how students managed collaboration. Early coordination relied more on instructor guidance; later, teams distributed roles, negotiated deadlines, and resolved disagreements autonomously. The mixed composition of PhD and undergraduate students required flexibility and sensitivity to disciplinary and cultural differences, prompting explicit negotiation of expectations and workload.

The final presentation sessions provided a visible culmination of this process. During Q&A exchanges simulating conference interaction, students defended claims and engaged in polite disagreement without direct instructor mediation. Their interaction reflected growing confidence in academic dialogue. Student reflections illustrate this shift toward agency. One participant noted that the project “made me realize I can rely on my team and also take responsibility for my part,” while another emphasized growth in “adaptability and emotional management.” Such comments indicate development extending beyond task completion to interpersonal competence.

Digital fluency also evolved through practice. By the final session, students demonstrated greater intentionality in multimodal design: clearer visual hierarchies, consistent formatting, and more effective use of infographics to enhance comprehensibility. Together, these developments suggest that project-based teamwork fostered ownership of both the collaborative process and the communicative outcome.

4.6. Summary of Findings

Across triangulated data sources—presentation artifacts, session recordings, peer feedback, field notes, and survey responses—the findings indicate development across five interrelated domains: audience-oriented presentation competence, research socialization, intercultural communication, student-centered approach and teamwork.

Descriptive survey data (n = 5) verify these patterns. Given the small n, we report means and qualitative corroboration rather than inferential statistics. All respondents (5/5) rated the course as relevant to future academic or professional contexts and valued the international collaboration. Four out of five reported increased confidence in English presentations, and all five indicated improved awareness of teamwork dynamics.

Thematic coding of open-ended responses revealed recurring categories: transferability to professional contexts (5/5), intercultural awareness (4/5), growth in presentation delivery (4/5), collaborative responsibility (3/5), and managing anxiety (3/5). Students described the experience as “confidence-building” and “demanding in a good way,” and several highlighted the authenticity of speaking to international peers. Overall, the findings indicate progressive refinement of academic presentation practice, increased evidence-based reasoning, observable intercultural mediation, strengthened collaborative responsibility, and measurable gains in confidence.

5. Discussion

The findings suggest that the integration of task-based learning, intercultural collaboration, and inclusive pedagogy can create conditions that simultaneously support students’ communicative competence, involvement in academic argumentation and emotional wellbeing. The course design positions them as interdependent and mutually reinforcing dimensions of academic participation within an international setting.

At the communicative level, the development of audience-oriented presentation competence demonstrates the value of peer critique and simulated academic interaction. The students’ work of drafting, feedback and revision appears to have strengthened control over structure and response. This aligns with action-oriented language education and the shift from traditional EAP toward English for Professional and International Communication (EPIC), which foregrounds real-world relevance and professional applicability (Piccardo & North, 2019; Dooly & O’Dowd, 2020; Redecker, 2022).

The inquiry-driven format further supported early-stage research socialization. Although students did not conduct empirical studies, they engaged in delimiting scope, synthesizing sources, weighing perspectives, and defending claims. Viewed through the lens of research socialization (Bland & Atweh, 2007; Hu et al., 2007), this suggests that participation in authentic disciplinary practices, even at an introductory level, can nurture research inquiry. Students began to see themselves not only as learners of content but as contributors to dialogue.

Intercultural competence emerged not as declarative knowledge about difference but as situated practice within mixed-nationality teams. Negotiation of communicative expectations required adaptability and reflective awareness. Collaboration proved linguistically enriching while also socially and cognitively empowering, nurturing learners’ sense of belonging in international discourse communities (Byram & Wagner, 2018; Helm & Beaven, 2021). In this respect, the course exemplifies how intercultural engagement becomes meaningful when embedded in shared inquiry.

The student-centered and compassionate orientation of the course was equally meaningful in supporting students’ persistence and confidence. Consistent with Dewaele and MacIntyre’s (2016) model of enjoyment and anxiety as coexisting forces shaping performance, students reported increases in self-rated presentation confidence, alongside reflections describing positive challenge rather than apprehension.

Inclusive pedagogy extends beyond task design. It involves relational responsiveness and sustained attention to students’ social and emotional conditions. The course demonstrated that fostering curiosity, agency, and participation requires flexible pacing and compassionate engagement, particularly in digitally mediated contexts. Such practices resonate with crisis-responsive research on online learning (Rapanta et al., 2020) and with broader calls for pedagogies grounded in critical compassion (Kamenetz, 2020). Technology functioned not merely as a delivery mechanism but as an enabling infrastructure for collaboration across geographical and cultural boundaries.

At the same time, several limitations warrant consideration. The study involved a small, self-selected cohort from two national contexts, limiting statistical generalization. The reliance on synchronous digital interaction may have privileged students with stable technological access. While qualitative reflections provided rich insight, longitudinal data were not collected to assess sustained transfer of communicative and intercultural competencies. Moreover, the dual role of instructor–researcher, inherent in the case study and action research design, introduces potential interpretive proximity despite systematic triangulation. Finally, the focus on oral presentation and teamwork leaves other professional competencies, such as academic writing, digital networking, and negotiation, underexplored.

Within its scope, however, and from a pedagogical perspective, the study suggests that conference-style simulation, when embedded in inquiry-driven teamwork and sup-ported by inclusive facilitation, can prepare non-English majors for participation in international academic communication. From a research perspective, it demonstrates how reflexive thematic analysis, combined with descriptive survey indicators, can render such developmental trajectories visible.

Future research may expand this model across larger participant pools, examine longitudinal sustainability of communicative competencies, and compare online, hybrid, and face-to-face modalities. Further investigation into the interaction between student-centered factors and epistemic development in project-based intercultural contexts would deepen understanding of how communicative confidence and scholarly agency evolve.

6. Conclusions

Taken as a whole, our findings offer a clear response to the research questions that guided this study. The course suggests that even students who are not English majors can develop confidence, collaborative competence, and an emerging research identity when supported through an inclusive, intercultural, project-based pedagogical model. By engaging in authentic academic tasks, such as preparing conference-style presentations, negotiating meaning in international teams, responding to real audiences, and engaging in Q&A and peer feedback, students encountered the actual communicative, cognitive and interpersonal demands of academic and professional life. We believe that, despite being a small-scale project, the combination of soft skills training, telecollaborative teamwork, and guided research socialization experienced can provide a productive pathway for preparing learners for participation in global academic communities. Our model, therefore, offers a contextually grounded and practice-informed framework which may be adapted to integrate linguistic, intercultural, and research-oriented competence in other EAP/EPIC contexts depending on local needs and constraints. Ours unexpectedly turned out to be a crisis-driven context, where understanding the situation and the practical problems necessarily involved re-setting priorities to respond to the challenges, i.e., implementing “Panic-gogy”, which is currently so often needed in consideration of the crises which are hitting so many people, from natural disasters and circulation of pathogens, to economic crunches, wars, migrations, and asylum- and refuge-seeking.