Building confidence is a popular learning objective in English language courses but it's one of those objectives that has become a cliche in many classrooms. Confidence is a psychological construct that’s hard to measure in a language course which gives it an elusive character compared to other objectives and it's connection to the methodologies we use in class is also unclear: What are the class activities that build students' confidence as ELLs? How do we do it and how do we know? The presentation will engage the attendees in a discussion about what building confidence means in the context of a Korean College English course from both conceptual and methodological perspectives. Building on the concept of English as Lingua Franca, the presentation focuses on the idea of adding legitimacy to ELLs as English speakers in their own right. The audience will also engage in an activity called Focused Listening designed to help students engage with just the essential information of listening activities that are informationally dense and sparse. Focused listening takes a strength-based approach to listening and utilizes peer social interaction as a tool for engagement and participation. The presentation will close with comments from students on what it means to build confidence as an English language learner in a college English course.