The investigation on teachers’ beliefs and their impact on teacher cognition has been of immense significance for educational inquiry recently. The way teachers act and behave in the classes are tied to their beliefs, mental life, assumptions, and motivation levels. Therefore, research on teachers’ beliefs is instrumental in accounting for optimizing their performance in the world of classroom. Embedded in social cognitive theory, teacher self-efficacy, a highly influential teacher-related variable, is conceptualized as individual teachers' beliefs in his/her own ability to plan, organize, and carry out activities that are required to attain given educational goals. During the last decade the research literature has shown a growing interest in teacher self-efficacy in mainstream education. However, this construct has not been adequately addressed in EFL contexts. The purpose of the current study was to explore relations between teacher self-efficacy on the one hand and emotional exhaustion and depersonalization as the central elements of burnout on the other hand. Participants were 542 Iranian EFL teachers, a relatively representative sample from various parts of the country. The collected data were analyzed through structural equation modelling using the Mplus program. The hypothesized structural model of self-efficacy, emotional exhaustion and depersonalization showed a good fit to the data, revealing a considerable relationship between the teacher self-efficacy and teacher burnout elements. Theoretical and pedagogical implications of the study are finally discussed.
