Yugoslav elementary school students of English as a second language were the subjects of a longitudinal study to determine factors influencing the acquisition of correct English pronunciation. The students were tested for their ability to articulate 32 sounds within ten specific English words. The test was administered each year from the second through the eighth year of English instruction. It was found that pronunciation proficiency varied inversely with degree of hearing impairment, beginning with the second year of study. By the sixth year, this correlation was virtually reversed, and students with perfect hearing were turninq in the worst performances. Amonq the variables that were examined, two seem to have contributed to this trend: hearing-imparied students tended to be more highly motivated than those with perfect hearing; and there was a strong correlation between written test and hearing test scores, but only for hearing-imparied students (i.e., these students seem to have used written stimuli as an aid in pronunciation). Results are open to some questions because of the small sample size (66), but the study gives every indication that attention to hearing acuity is of great importance in second language pronunciation instruction. (JB)