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This study investigates whether L2 learners can be trained to make better use of phonetic information from visual cues in their perception of a novel phonemic contrast. It also evaluates the impact of audiovisual perceptual training on the learners’ pronunciation of a novel contrast. The use of visual cues for speech perception was evaluated for two English phonemic contrasts: the /v/–/b/–/p/ labial/labiodental contrast and /l/–/r/ contrast. In the first study, 39 Japanese learners of English were tested on their perception of the /v/–/b/–/p/ distinction in audio, visual and audiovisual modalities, and then undertook ten sessions of either auditory (‘A training’) or audiovisual (‘AV training’) perceptual training before being tested again. AV training was more effective than A training in improving the perception of the labial/labiodental contrast. In a second study, 62 Japanese learners of English were tested on their perception of the …