Abstract: The present study aimed at investigating the relationship between EFL teachers' use of Neuro-linguistic-programming (NLP) techniques, 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, Khouzestan, 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). 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. The results of the present study can improve EFL teachers’ knowledge about the value of reflecting on teaching practices, use of NLP techniques in their classrooms and the importance of efficacy. This study also has implications for EFL learners, syllabus designers, language institutes managers and policy makers to consider the characteristics of teachers as important in language teaching and learning processes.
