The paper addresses a major issue in language teaching and learning, namely the proportion of the first language used by teachers in the EFL classroom in the university setting in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The results indicate that the amount of target language exposure does not contribute to students' anxiety and students behave and act according to the teaching environment they are used to from their teachers. If their teachers use more English, the students similarly tend to use the target language more. The paper concludes that judicious, limited use of the first language is certainly beneficial, yet overreliance on the first language may harm the teaching process.