The current study tends to explore the ELT professionalism role in developing learners’ critical thinking skills, the case of first-year English as Foreign Language learners at Mohamed Lamine DEBBAGHINE University Setif-2. In other words, this mixed-methods research aims at investigating the possible effects of the EFL teacher’s growth in terms of ELT professionalism as an intersection of professional knowledge, culture, instruction and assessment on learners’ difficulties in problems-solving, opinions and arguments’ statement, etc. The work describes two variables: ELT professionalism as the independent variable and its role in developing learners’ critical thinking skills as the dependent variable. The gathered data were carried through two data collection means: The former was a questionnaire for one hundred-seventy out of eight hundred-fifty first-year students and the latter was an interview for twenty-five out of fifty EFL teachers. After the data analyses, it has been deduced that learners’ critical thinking skills can be developed through ELT professionalism. Although, this study has some limitations but its findings remain interesting. In order, to test the applicability of the findings to a larger population future research should be done experimentally.

Key terms: Assessment- critical thinking skills-culture- ELT professionalism-  Instruction- professional knowledge- teacher’s growth.