Hasta Siempre Comandante: Creating Immersive Cultural Learning through Revolutionary Music and Virtual Reality

Presenter Information

Diego Salinas

Faculty Sponsor

Dr. Johana Barrero, Dr. Angeles Fernandes-Cifuentes

Faculty Sponsor College

College of Arts and Sciences

Faculty Sponsor Department

Languages, Literatures & Cultures

Location

SOARS Virtual Conference

Presentation Website

https://unfsoars.domains.unf.edu/2021/posters/hasta-siempre-comandante-creating-immersive-cultural-learning-through-revolutionary-music-and-virtual-reality/

Keywords

SOARS (Conference) (2021 : University of North Florida) – Archives; SOARS (Conference) (2021 : University of North Florida) – Posters; University of North Florida -- Students -- Research – Posters; University of North Florida. Office of Undergraduate Research; University of North Florida. Graduate School; College students – Research -- Florida – Jacksonville – Posters; University of North Florida – Undergraduates -- Research – Posters; University of North Florida. Department of Languages; Literatures and Cultures -- Research – Posters; Project of Merit Award Winner

Abstract

Project of Merit Winner

This project is one of a series of projects focused around the development, design, and development of Open Educational Resources (OER) for the Spanish Department at UNF. The researchers sought to create activities involving immersive educational materials for lower and upper-level Spanish courses prioritizing Virtual Reality and reading accessibility. This project specifically focuses on the incorporation of music into the VR space. When paired with VR in the language classroom, music proves to aid in immersion and ultimately results in a multitude of benefits for students. Along with increased vocabulary retention, increased enthusiasm, and a de-stressing effect, music proves to be particularly effective in conveying culture. Clever incorporation of music in a language lesson can significantly improve the student experience. In order to design a VR experience for the classroom, the researcher created an activity centered around the Cuban song Hasta Siempre Comandante. This song represents an exemplary model of how a professor can incorporate music and VR into a lesson. The song has been chosen for its representation of Cuban history, and for its typical son composition; altogether an easily-digestible microcosm of Cuban culture. In analyzing the lyrics, professors can introduce poetic analysis; and in exploring the music they can introduce the syncretism of Latin culture. Students will listen to the song while seeing Cuban landscapes in 360º VR, followed by instructed analysis. Based on this model, the students can form their own project exploring a country’s culture through the lens of a song, resulting in increased cultural understanding.

Comments

Audio Presentation Transcript:

This project is centered around the design of immersive experiences for the language learning classroom, with five students each conducting independent research on one area within the larger umbrella. My research was specifically focused on the incorporation of music into the virtual reality space. I had three essential tasks: research the efficacy of music and VR in language education, build a database of music resources for professors, and the design of an immersive experience. The culmination of these three tasks is outlined on this poster.

The research shows that incorporating music into the language learning classroom is consistently helpful to students. Music aids in lowering affective filters, or barriers formed by negative attitudes. In this sense it can be used to approach complex topics like poetry in a less frightening manner. It also aids in vocabulary retention (particularly when paired with images). See Figure 1 for the results of a study by Medina proving that incorporating both music and images leads to the most vocabulary retention. Additional research shows that when teaching through multimodal methods, learners are provided with a range of different ways to understand and communicate complex ideas and concepts, addressing multiple learning styles and ensuring maximum accessibility.

For the design portion of this project, I designed an experience based around the detailed study of one song. The song can be one of the professor’s choosing, but for the sake of example I chose one – Hasta Siempre Comandante. This song was chosen for a few reasons: It is an important song to Cuban people, it is composed in a traditional son style which is unique to Cuba, and it has to do with revolutionary movements. Altogether, this song is the perfect medium to convey the true essence of Latino culture. In its music, the Hispanic duality of old world instruments like African drums mix with New World styles. In its lyrics, we see a brilliant monument to Che Guevara, who fundamentally changed Cuban history and government. The song will be played while students are looking at 360-degree environments of Cuba, from its cities to its countrysides. Ideally, locations of Cuban revolutionary battles are used. After experiencing this, the professor can break down the lyrics, indirectly showing students poetic analysis. They can follow this by showing how music in Latin America is both derived from many places, and entirely unique. In doing so they can also express how music was vital in many revolutionary movements throughout the Latin world.

To measure how effective this was in conveying an understanding of culture and language, students can do a final project where they find a song to present in a similar style. The professor can grade them on their lyrical analysis and presentation of cultural importance. Ideally a whole class of students presenting over different songs can give a collective view of a variety of Latin American countries, giving the class a broad introduction to the many unique cultures found there. I believe that through this activity students will be able to absorb much more than they would have learned through only conventional teaching methods.

Rights Statement

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/