Conclusion
The present study highlights the benefits of noise cancelling headphones in industries where there is a high level of background noise such as general aviation. Importantly, this benefit appears universal across language background. In fact, the results of the present study indicate that using noise cancelling headphones as a non-native speaker reduces any advantage other non-native speakers who have specialist knowledge in the area may have. The results also highlight the importance of various techniques employed within aviation such as the use of standard phraseology, as well as redundancies such as read-backs, to maintain minimum safety standard levels.