Greater student satisfaction, trust, and self-directed learning may result if the teacher uses questioning, clarifying and accepting behaviors for both student feedback about the effectiveness of the teacher's communication behavior (instructional metacommunication) and about the content presented; instructional metacommunication will enable teachers to improve their communication delivery skills and more adequately ascertain the specific needs, interests, and different knowledge and ability levels of their students. As an exploratory investigation of these hypotheses and also to explore the feasibility of instructional metacommunication, instructors in a team-taught graduate course in self-directed learning had students develop behavioral objectives for improved interpersonal communication, and elicited feedback about the effectiveness of their communication behavior after lecture-discussions. Student metacommunicative feedback was less threatening and more useful than anticipated. Seminars or workshops designed to provide experience and training for teachers in instructional metacommunication are suggested. (Author/SH)