abstract this mixed method study examines whether there is any relationship among the variables of the study (job satisfaction, social capital and motivation). the researcher considered job satisfaction and social capital as independent variables; motivation is the dependent variable of the study. the researcher applied a questionnaire to assess each variable. to measure efl teachers’ job satisfaction the researcher used teacher’s job satisfaction questionnaire developed by lester (1987). to measure teachers’ social capital, the researcher used social capital questionnaire developed by pishghadam, noghani & zabihi (2011). students’ motivation was measured by attitude motivation test battery developed by gardner (1985). the participants of the study for quantitative section were 18 teachers and 214 students. the qualitative data in the form of interview was obtained based on the questionnaires’ points to further explore the results of the quantitative portion of the study. four teachers took part in the interview. the participants of the study were selected from four english institutes of mashhad and one of ghoochan. the overall level of job satisfaction and social capital was at average level in all the institutes (standard deviation ?2). the quantitative and qualitative results of the study show that there is a relationship between teacher job satisfaction and social capital. although from the quantitative findings there was not any relationship between teachers’ social capital and students’ motivation, the qualitative results show that there can be a correlation between the two variables. it was clear that teachers’ job satisfaction and students’ motivation are interrelated. from the results there were differences in teacher job satisfaction with regard to the gender and years of experience.