Listening is often a challenge for foreign/second language learners. Unlike other language skills, listening requires immediate understanding and processing (Vandergrift, 2004) and background knowledge of the target language culture (Vandergrift, 2007; Walker, 2014). Krashen (1985) argued that language can be acquired with comprehensible input; therefore, studies have focused on developing listening skills through both intensive and extensive listening (e.g., Chang & Read, 2006; Jones, 2008; Renandya, 2011). This paper has taken a different approach in that developing listening skills might happen through interaction where learners discuss and negotiate, and not solely through intensive input (Ellis, 1997). Accordingly, the current study examines whether active learning group discussion activities help develop lower-level students' listening comprehension skills. The study creates and implements fifteen active learning group discussion activities based on insights from Elmetaher's (2021) "Active Learning Checklist" for a full academic term with a group of 25 L1 Japanese students enrolled in a compulsory academic listening course in a Japanese southern university. Pre- and post-listening tests were developed, administered, and showed a significant increase of the listening scores in this group. A discussion on the effectiveness of 'group discussion' in developing listening skills with a newly introduced Four Questions (4Q) teaching strategy has been included.