Culture and vision in virtual reality narratives

Abstract

AbstractHansen states that “FL studies must learn to conceive of culture as an open, multi‐voiced and dialogical interaction full of contradictions.” One advocated approach to teach transcultural understanding is through the analysis of cultural narratives. Kearney defines cultural narratives as “the multiple (sometimes competing), conventional storylines that cultural groups produce and use to make sense of and attribute meaning to their shared experiences.” This article will showcase a project in a beginning French course in which four different Parisians from the same quarter were asked to document and share the stories of their lives with a virtual reality (VR) camera. Findings reveal that the VR narratives allowed students to envision, experience, and understand diverse facets of Parisian culture and more vividly imagine their future role as participants in Parisian communities.