Before Joyce became famous as writer, he supported himself through his other language work: English-language teaching in Pola, Trieste, and Rome. The importance of James Joyce’s teaching, however, has been underestimated until now. The very playfulness and unconventionality that made him a popular and successful teacher has led his pedagogy to be underrated, and the connections between his teaching and his writing have been largely neglected. James Joyce’s Teaching Life and Methods reveals the importance in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses, and Finnegans Wake of pedagogy and the understanding of language Joyce gained teaching English as a Foreign Language in Berlitz schools and elsewhere.
Elizabeth Switaj is a Liberal Arts Instructor at the College of the Marshall Islands. Her previous publications include essays on Joyce, which have appeared in the Journal of Modern Literature and the Joyce Studies in Italy series, and a collection of poetry, Magdalene and the Mermaids.
