Abstract The present study aimed at investigating the relationship between EFL teachers' use of Neuro-linguistic-programming (NLP) techniques, teachers' efficacy, reflective teaching, and their students' willingness to communicate (WTC). To this end, 120 EFL teachers and 1200 EFL learners were chosen based on convenience sampling procedure from different language schools in Hamedan, Khiuzestan, and Fars provinces. The teachers took NLP scale (Pishghadam, Shayesteh, & Shapoori, 2011), the teacher efficacy questionnaire (Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2001), the reflective teaching questionnaire (Akbari, Behzadpour & Dadvand, 2010), and the students took the willingness to communicate in a Foreign Language Scale (WTC- FLS) (Baghaei, 2012). Moreover, 20 EFL learners were randomly selected and attended a semi-structured interview. The results of three separate Pearson correlations revealed that a) high levels of teachers' use of NLP techniques were associated with high levels of their students' willingness to communicate, b) high levels of teachers' reflective teaching were associated with high levels of their students' willingness to communicate, and c) high levels of teachers' efficacy were associated with high levels of their students' willingness to communicate. Moreover, the results of multiple regression analysis indicated that teachers' reflective teaching makes the strongest contribution for explaining learners' willingness to communicate. Additionally, the results of content analysis of interviews revealed that most of the EFL learners were considerably willing to communicate in English with native speakers, non-native speakers, and also their teacher and classmates, however some characteristics or problems inhibit them from communication.
