There has been a growing interest in and concern for the teaching of listening in the last 40 years. Looking back over the years, we can see how the emphases on teaching listening and the focus of listening instruction have changed. Although instructional practices were initially heavily influenced by models of the written language and a behaviourist approach, the focus has since moved to developing listening as a skill needed for constructing and communicating meaning. More recently, discussions about listening instruction have emphasized the role of strategy training and learner metacognition in facilitating comprehension. In this paper I discuss a metacognitive approach, drawing on understandings from educational research as well as second language listening studies. I explain its theoretical rationale and identify principles for carrying out metacognitive instruction, as well as outline general instructional objectives and learning activities for this purpose. Finally, I suggest possible research directions for examining the role of metacognition in second language listening and the relevance of metacognitive instruction to listening development.