Listening plays a fundamental role in foreign language acquisition and it is a focus in college English teaching.The 1960s witnessed a marked shift of attention from methods of teaching to methods of learning in the field of language teaching. Inherent in this shift，there is the more recent tendency to emphasize autonomous learning in which students are supposed to take more responsibilities in foreign language classrooms.With the rapid development of scientific technology,many universities in western countries have established online multimedia autonomous foreign language learning centers and much research about autonomous learners have been done.At present，more than 180 universities in China have alreadY set up online multimedia language laboratories and have adopted the "autonomous listening learning model" While the research on listening and autonomous learning is flourishing，empirical studies are still insufficient，and there exists an absence of concern on the study of the listening strategies employed by autonomous learners under online multimedia environment. In order to cover the absence of concern,the author did an empirical research for one semester on 120 freshmen who studied English listening in the autonomous learning model under online multimedia environment by carrying out a listening test. conducting a listening strategy questionnaire and interviews.The results show that：1) the autonomous learners have positive attitudes towards English listening learning and multimedia environment.2)Though the autonomous learners use a wide range of listening strategies，on the whole they are not using strategies very frequently；and cognitive strategies are the most frequently used，followed by social/affective strategies and metacognitive strategies.3)8 out of 19 listening strategies have statistically significant relations with the listening test scores. 4)There are some difrerences in the use of listening strategies between efficient and less efficient autonomous learners；the former uses listening strategies more often than the latter.5) The interviews reveal that some learners were not accustomed to the autonomous listening learning model and the majority believed that using appropriate listening strategy is important and they were longing for a comprehensive strategy instructions and hoped teachers would be more active in giving advices in the autonomous class. Based on the research findings，a conclusion can be drawn：1)To promote autonomous listening learning among freshmen，a psychological preparation process is necessary 2)It is crucial to for our teachers to be positive and to give autonomous learners’some rational strategy training or instructions.3)Some practical methods of strategy instructions are also proposed in the paper.For example：teachers should pay attention to the instruction of metacognitive strategies，especially the strategies of planning，self-management and self-evaluation；instruction of some cognitive strategies like note taking and transfer should not be neglected；teachers should also motivate cooperation among autonomous learners.