Abstract
In this article, we present and discuss the findings of ten semistructured interviews with community language teachers (primarily of Gumbaynggirr, a language of coastal northern New South Wales, Australia) regarding their approaches to and perceptions of their language education practice, including their motivations, pedagogical orientations, choices, and aims. Inspired by the increasingly socially oriented trajectory of applied linguistics research, specifically research situating language teaching in social contexts, we illustrate how community language teachers act with socially oriented agency within a difficult environment. Their self-described approaches and views are shaped and enacted in light of the particular aims and challenges pertaining to language revitalization. The role and function of language teaching, as perceived by community teachers, is engaged with personal as well as wider social, historical issues that lie at the root of language loss in Australia.
