Anecdotal accounts about language learning through audiovisual input are increasingly frequent while research on how this happens from a language acquisition perspective is leaving its infancy. In this talk I will attempt to provide an overview of this area highlighting some of the research findings that have shown the language learning potential of this multimodal input both from experimental studies measuring language gains and from qualitative studies conveying learners' voices. While doing so, the talk will engage with issues that go beyond the specific conditions under which this learning occurs and which are relevant to the field of second language acquisition. The talk ends by relating learning through audiovisual input to the more general area of informal language learning which, especially within digital contexts, may transform school language education in radical ways.
