The study is about the influence of the English listening course of the Universities of Ethiopia on first year EFL students’ listening skills. The research question in this research was “How does the listening course of the Universities of Ethiopia influence first year English as foreign language (EFL) students’ listening skills?” The primary aim of the study was to investigate the influence of the English listening course of the Universities of Ethiopia on first year EFL students’ listening skills. The secondary aims were organized to establish how the contents of the English listening course can influence listening skills,to investigate how the methods used to teach the course can influence the development of listening skills, to investigate how the strategies students used can promote listening skills, to explore how the listening activities used can develop students’ ability to listen, and to investigate challenges EFL students encountered when learning the English listening skills course.The study employed qualitative case study research method. Data were collected using observation, group interview with students, individual based interview with instructors, and material analysis. Data sorting and analysis were carried out using ATLAS.ti7 software guided by the thematic analysis. The findings of the study revealed that most of the listening texts were too long for students to comprehend and their complexity did not take students’ prior knowledge into consideration. The methods instructors used emphasized testing rather than promoting comprehension. Students were unable to select appropriate strategies to make sense of the oral and written texts. Based on the findings, an “Activity Driven Information Processing Model for Teaching Listening“ is proposed for teaching English language listening course in EFL context. KEY TERMS Listening skills, listening activities, listening strategies, listening teaching methods, authentic listening texts, listening challenges, listening strategy instruction, background knowledge, purposes of listening, dimensions of listening