This paper explores the perceptions of their teachers' instructional strategies by students of an EMI university EAP course. It describes teacher-student interactions within language classrooms and investigates how their value is understood by students. Six participants were studied, using classroom observations employing the Foreign Language Interaction (FLINT) system, and semi-structured interviews. The participants consisted of four students and two teachers, who were enrolled in the same university EAP course. The analysis revealed persistent difficulties in academic listening amongst English learners regardless of their proficiency level. The findings indicate that EAP instructors employ a coherent set of teaching activities with an implicit rationale to develop listening strategies, but that this rationale is not always understood or aligned with students’ own learning strategies. The findings are limited, but, even so, suggest that instructors and students should discuss the rationale for their learning strategies more explicitly at the outset of a course.