Listening effort and fatigue in native and non-native primary school children

•Examined listening effort in native and non-native primary school children.•Pupillometry captured listening effort and fatigue in a narrative processing task.•Listening effort increased in typical compared to favourable classroom-like SNR.•Pupillometry indicated greater fatigue over time during typical classroom-like SNR.•Effort had different outcomes on performance for native versus non-native speakers.