French speaker or listened to an interview on French radio in the last year or two cannot but have noticed the astounding frequency with which interlocutors (or radio interviewers) begin their sentences with "Ecoutez ..." or the familiar equivalent "Ecoute ...." Although this lexical phenomenon is in fact only an illustration of Jakobson's phatic function, having nothing to do with communicative intent, the instructor of the third year conversation course would be well-advised to reflect upon the imperative mood of the verb ecouter and its implications for advanced language study. How well indeed do students listen? How well do they understand what they hear? What incentives do they have for improving their auditory comprehension? Can we say, in all honesty, that for American students, as for the French, entendre and comprendre are often synonymous? In this article, I shall attempt to answer these questions, first, through a synthesis of some important theoretical contributions to an understanding of the skill of listening comprehension (LC), then by proposing a practical model for LC activities in the collegelevel French conversation course. Evidence supports the contention that emphasis on auditory comprehension in the beginning stages of foreign language learning reaps abundant benefits. In fact, research suggests that one reason for the demise of the ALM was precisely that the method applied the listening-first rule only to single utterances. Wilga Rivers, Gerald Newmark and Simon Belasco, among others, diagnosed the ALM'S malady as an overdose of pattern practice drills and called repeatedly for greater emphasis upon decoding or recognition skills.