Introduction: The huge impact of technology in the last few decades, and the ample development of information and communication technologies (ICT) has established them as an essential characteristic of today's society. This vertiginous advance, and the quantity and diversity of changes in knowledge that are being generated, are inducing important innovations and transformations in the school environment and its curriculum. The irruption of ICT in the educational sphere entails an increase in motivation and an interest in the learning processes of each student. Likewise, greater autonomy and competence have been fostered within this society in state of continual transformation. On the other hand, the quantity of time that each student dedicates to using certain technologies (mobile phones, internet, social media and videogames) outside of the school environment, and the variety of digital and audiovisual resources that are being developed, leads to a need to consider their influence on some of the basic psychological processes used in learning, and their relevance to teaching practice. It has been demonstrated that the use of ICT influences skills such as attention, perception and memory. For this reason, this investigation aims to: a) analyze the influence of ICT on the learning of second languages -- concretely, on learning English; b) test whether there is a relation between neurophysiological maturity and learning second languages; c) discover the role played by attention in learning second languages; and d) to investigate whether learning second languages through ICT influences students' motivation. Method: 70 students (35 girls and 35 boys) aged between 10 and 11 years old participated in this study. The students are in their fifth year of primary education, in a center based in the city of Granada. Results: The results show that both the methodology employed through the use of ICT and the neurophysiological development of each student influence their learning of English as a second language. Equally, attention was also found to be related with the learning of English. On the other hand, motivation to learn was found to be greater in students learning via ICT. Discussion and conclusions: Thus it can be concluded that a methodology based in ICT favors acquisition of second languages, as does the motivation of the student for learning. Likewise, those students with more advanced neurophysiological development and who score higher for attention find it easier to learn English.