EFL Teachers' Learning and Teaching Beliefs: Does Critical Thinking Make a Difference?

Current research in the field of language education is more concerned with motives underlying successful practicing teachers' behaviours rather than techniques and methods for effective teaching. It is now recognized that there are only good teachers, there is not such a thing as good as teaching. This correlational study is therefore designed and conducted to reveal how well teachers' critical thinking as well as its subcomponents can predict EFL teachers' language learning beliefs and their respective levels. Accordingly, two respective questionnaires, Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal and Beliefs about Language Learning Inventory, were given to 130 EFL teachers conveniently sampled, and the elicited data were analyzed via correlational and multiple/multivariate regression analyses. The results indicated that 24 percent of the variance in learning beliefs was explained by the five levels of critical thinking The collective contribution of the five levels of critical thinking were only significant to three of the five dependent levels, i.e. 9% to language nature, 26% to motivation and expectation, and 25% to learning and communication. Also, only the contribution of assumption level was significant just to learning/communication. What can be inferred from the findings is that foreign language teachers' learning and teaching beliefs can be, to a large extent, predicted from their levels of criticality.