<![CDATA[Developing EFL listening comprehension in isolated territories remains an arduous task due to severe digital divide constraints and minimal target language exposure. Posing a critical need to understand how students navigate these barriers within archipelagic education contexts, this study examined listening proficiency, metacognitive awareness, and environmental obstacles at a frontier satellite campus. Sixty undergraduate students completed an objective listening assessment and a metacognitive questionnaire, supplemented by semi-structured interviews with ten participants experiencing the realities of remote learning. Diagnostic data revealed a moderate-low performance average, where listening scores linked positively with focused attention but dropped significantly when students relied heavily on mental translation. Qualitatively, participants suffered from vocabulary-processing friction, accent anxiety, and internet-disruption fatigue. Ultimately, expanding communication competence in marginalized borders requires transitioning from online-dependent models toward localized, offline-first instructional materials that combine explicit cognitive training with culturally responsive, human-in-the loop AI tools, which are presented here as a practitioner-level framework awaiting empirical validation. Keywords: EFL listening comprehension, metacognitive awareness, archipelagic education, digital divide, remote learning]]>
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