This quasi‐experimental study compared a strategies approach to second language listening instruction with an interactive approach, one combining a roughly equal balance of strategies and bottom‐up skills. The participants were lower‐intermediate‐level Taiwanese university EFL learners, who were taught for 22 hours over one and a half semesters. Their progress through the respective courses was charted via multiple instruments designed to assess growth in their listening proficiency, strategy use, bottom‐up skills, and affect‐related learner characteristics. Pretest and posttest one‐way ANOVAs showed no significant differences between the two groups on any of the dimensions tested. However, a repeated‐measures ANOVA showed significant gains by the strategies group in listening comprehension, but not by the interactive group. On this longitudinal within‐group comparison, the strategies group also demonstrated larger effect sizes than the interactive group for listening instruction, one measure of strategies growth, and the learner characteristics of confidence and motivation, whereas the interactive group showed larger effect sizes than the strategies group for all measures of bottom‐up skills involved. The outcome between the groups in terms of listening proficiency suggests that for lower‐intermediate‐level listeners, it is better to focus more on developing their listening strategies than to provide them with a balanced interactive approach.