Abstract ··'!ti.The present study was carried out to investigate the effects of listening strategy instruction on students' listening ability and strategy use. To this end 52 (M = 29 and F =23) out of 1169 (M = 620 an¥= 549) grade 11 students from Merawi preparatory school were selected using simple rQ.ndom sampling. The main instruments used to collect data were listening tests and listening etrategy questionnaires. Students were placed in experimental and control groups based on ~ pretest results. The listening questionnaire with 25-items prepared and administered to both a.groups as a pretest in order to investigate students' strategy use before instruction. The experimental group was given explicit listening strategy instruction for an hour once a week. . ~ • However,' the control group was taught listening skills by the conventional approach for an hour ._ per week for eight weeks. After the training had been completed, the two groups took a posttest •and filled in the questionnaire for the second time for the purpose of comparing the mean · difference between the two groups and within groups. Data obtained through the tests arid · questionnaires were analyzed using SPSS version-16.0. The study employed statistical techniques such as independent samples t test, paired samples t test and correlation. The finding indicated that both the experimental and control groups had almost similar listening ability and strategy use before training. The finding after instructions revealed that listening strategy instruction ~s more effective and had a positive impact on students' listening ability than the conventionaJ/lripproach of teaching listening. Moreover, the finding indicated that there was a viii i' . . statistically significant mean difference in the experimental group participants' use of listenin¥ strategies for memory, compensation, metacognitive, affective and social strategies. Besides, the finding revealed that compensation strategy was the most commonly used strategy, but the least used strategy was social strategy. Finally, the experimental and control groups' posttest scores were strongly correlated with their strategy use. ..