This qualitative case study first examined middle school teacher perceptions of practice regarding L2 listening instruction and, from these, proposes guidelines to favour L2 listening development. Novice middle-school teachers from Chile (n = 14) were guided within semi-structured interviews to reflect on their own L2 listening teaching practices in public and semi-private school classrooms. Verbal reports were transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis techniques and underwent systematic interrogation of qualitative data. The results show an overemphasis on teacher preference for task completion to the detriment of developing listening strategies. We present results and provide guidelines for teachers to integrate features of a metacognitive instruction approach to listening.