Proponents of the cognitive approach to language teaching list linguistic competence as the primary instructional objective and attribute considerable importance to listening comprehension. For the student, linguistic competence would be knowledge of grammatical components of the language and its vocabulary. Understanding oral messages is an essential prerequisite for effective communication, the goal of foreign language teaching today. Training in aural comprehension is therefore crucial. The listener interprets speech in three interrelated stages: (1) the speech perception stage, (2) the speech comprehension stage, and (3) the memory storage stage. The listener employs these strategies in communication situations in the native language. Instruction in their use can facilitate the student's acquisition of the listening skill in the foreign language. The following approaches are suggested: presentation of taped listening materials which include normal speech patterns, instruction in general phonological patterns, training in parsing a sentence into constituents and recognition of content words, systematic vocabulary building, development of syntactic strategies, and judicious use of translation. If listening comprehension is a major goal, it should occupy a major part of the testing program. If the teacher devotes more time to the systematic analysis, practice and testing of listening comprehension, the student should acquire the necessary knowledge and skills. (AMH)