If you want to learn a language well, start by listening to how it sounds. That is the message of a new study from UCL Institute of Education and Tohoku University in Japan, published this month in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, and highlighted in a recent article in the Guardian.
The team tested 67 Japanese learners of English. They measured each person’s auditory precision: the ability to detect slight differences in pitch, length and tone in non-speech sounds. They then used fMRI scans to observe participants’ brains as they tried to tell apart English vowels that do not exist in Japanese.
Learners with sharper ears mastered the new pronunciation faster and more accurately. Their brains processed the unfamiliar vowels much as they process non-speech sound, rather than routing them through language networks shaped by Japanese. With less interference from their first language, they heard the new sounds as they really are. Learners with less precise hearing used the brain’s left sensorimotor network more and mapped English sounds onto Japanese ones.
Lead author Professor Kazuya Saito-van Poeteren highlights what this means when exposure is limited. Learners with a good ear can make effective use of relatively little input; others need far more before new sounds take hold. He argues that language teaching should move beyond simply ‘more practice’ towards developing each learner’s ear. Commenting on the study, Professor Padraic Monaghan of Lancaster University said it confirms how central listening is to learning, while noting that learners vary in their sensitivity to sound.
The study has limits. It is small, involves one first-language group, and measured vowel perception rather than vocabulary or grammar. Whether ear training improves outcomes is the team’s next question. But it builds on a substantial body of earlier work, much of it directly relevant to ESOL.
Saito’s earlier research was carried out with adult migrants living in the UK. In a study of 139 Spanish, Chinese and Polish residents, auditory processing was a primary predictor of proficiency, not only in pronunciation but in vocabulary and grammar, even after age and experience were taken into account. The link was strongest among those who had lived here for more than a year. Put simply, a good ear seems to shape how much a learner gains from the English around them.
That matters because living in the UK does not guarantee meaningful exposure. Many ESOL learners work in jobs with little spoken interaction, have caring responsibilities, or live largely within their own language communities. Funded class time is often a few hours a week. These are exactly the conditions in which, Saito argues, the ear makes most difference. It may also help explain a pattern many teachers will recognise: learners with years of UK residence have hit a ceiling and their spoken English seems to have plateaued.
Yet pronunciation and listening perception remain among the least-taught areas of adult migrant English. Studies of Australia’s Adult Migrant English Program and of Canadian adult ESL provision have found that teachers receive little training in pronunciation and that materials for beginner learners are scarce. Research in New Zealand has linked weaker pronunciation to poorer job prospects for migrants. UK ESOL teachers will recognise the picture.
For learners with little or no prior schooling, the case is stronger still. LESLLA research shows that awareness of individual sounds does not develop automatically; it is closely tied to learning to read in an alphabetic script. Sound work with pre-entry and Entry 1 learners therefore supports both speaking and literacy.
None of this means abandoning grammar and vocabulary. It does suggest that structured ear training, such as minimal pairs, same-or-different listening tasks, and work on stress and rhythm, deserves a regular place in ESOL classrooms rather than an occasional slot. It also strengthens the case for initial teacher education and CPD that equip ESOL teachers to teach pronunciation and sound recognition with confidence.
The Language of Change