Introduction

Hi there! Let me be the first to say it. Welcome to Taiwan. Taiwan, the inscrutable Far East. Taiwan, the land of extreme opposites, the land of incredible beauty and the land of squalid ugliness. The beauty comes from the Chinese culture in general and the friendliness of the Taiwanese people in particular. The ugliness comes from the noise and pollution caused by chronic overcrowding.

If this is your first time in Asia you're in for some eye-opening suprises. Taiwan is altogether, totally, completely different from Australia, New Zealand, America, England, or wherever it is you come from. I can't stress this enough. Taiwan is different.

So do yourself a favor and leave your preconceptions and cultural expectations at the door as you come in please. You won't need them.

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Living in Taiwan

Living in Taiwan can be as expensive or as cheap as you want it to be. If you try to live an exclusively Western lifestyle you're going to end up paying through the nose for everything you buy. But if you are prepared to change your lifestyle a little then you can live quite cheaply. The first thing you will need is somewhere to live. Accommodation here in Taiwan is quite expensive so you'll have to shop around. I would suggest you get a cheap one-room apartment somewhere. This is only for the first couple of months until you meet some people, make some contacts and get a job. You have to be able to get around so you will need is a motorscooter. Everyone rides one of these over here so you can get a second hand one for a very reasonable price. Now you are ready to get a job. I would hold off on this for a couple of weeks. My suggestion is to find out where the expats hang out and start hanging out there yourself. Talk to some people, find out a little bit about the different schools and options you have, the differences in pay rates between different schools (These can be significant). Who knows, you might get lucky. You may be in the right place at the right time and get that perfect job.

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What will I need

Before you come over here you should get in contact with your local Taiwanese 'Embassy'. As Taiwan is not an officially recognised country in many parts of the world, Embassies are rather transparently disguised as 'Economic, Trade and Cultural Missions'. They can tell you exactly what you need to do. They can notarise documents, issue visas, etc. All the bureaucratic stuff that is oh so necessary but oh so time consuming and frustrating. So give yourself plenty of lead time here. If you wait till you get over here before you do this stuff you'll find yourself telephoning home asking family and friends for little favors which will stretch out the process immensely. To find out where the nearest 'Taiwan Representative Office' is you can look in your telephone book. Or, you could try this link from the 'Taiwan Government Information Office'.

Names , Address and Telephone numbers of the GIO's Office Abroad

You will definitely need a Bachelor Degree of some sort. It doesn't matter in what, just so long as it's a Degree. The Taiwanese people care very much about education. The higher your educational level the more respected you are. If two people go for the same job, one has a Masters Degree in Math and the other with a Bachelor Degree in TEFL, the Master would get the job. So if you have a higher Degree don't be afraid to flash it around and do some boasting, especially if it's from a 'good' school.

You'll also need some color passport sized photos, and lots of them. It seems like every form you have to fill out needs about six photos. So get the correctly sized photo taken before you come over here and bring the negative with you.

Most importantly bring some teaching resources with you, or even just your favorite books. If you plan to work outside of the major cities _any_ printed English material can be extremely difficult to get. You'll find yourself planning trips to the bigger cities on your day off just to go to English bookstores. Yes, I said day off. They work six days a week over here and only have Sunday off. Luckily there are two English newspapers that can be found in just about any city, 'The China Post' and "The China Times'. You may not think that they're much as newspapers go - but hey, they're English.

If you've made up your mind and have definitely decided to come to Taiwan. Start learning Chinese right now. This is a Chinese speaking country and you are going to have to be able to speak to people - shopkeepers, movie theatre ticket sellers, taxi drivers.... You'll also want to talk to your boss. Although they probably speak English, perhaps even reasonably good English, they are most comfortable speaking in Chinese. And isn't that the secret of a good working relationship in any country - keeping the boss happy.

You'll also need a health check that has to be done at a government approved hospital. But that can wait till you get ovet here. Most of it's just the usual trivial stuff, blood pressure and heart rate check, height and weight check, eyesight check, etc. The important part is the two blood samples they take, a HIV test and the regular blood test. The results from all these tests generally take about ten days to come back and remain valid for three months. You'll have to give these to your boss to send along with your work visa application to the relevant government authority. You may also want to get a copy of the results for yourself when you pick them up from the hospital, just in case something goes wrong and they get lost while doing the bureaucratic paper shuffle.

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Visas

There's not too much I want to say about visas. This is one of those areas of law that tends to change fairly rapidly. Besides there are many other Taiwan FAQs that deal with visas quite extensively to be found on my links page.

Another good place to find excellent information on visas is the "American Institute in Taiwan (AIT)".

Taiwan Entry Requirements
A word about employment opportunities and procedures for obtaining "residence visas" and "work permits" in Taiwan
A word about Taiwan visas and your stay in Taiwan.

The National Network of Foreign Spouses in Taiwan web site is a "must read" for all foreigners married to Taiwan citizens. (This site seems to be down at the moment, but I'll leave it up just in case it's a temporary problem.)

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Getting work

This is the easy part. I'm not sure how it is in the big cities but outside of these places there is a chronic shortage of foreign (meaning you) English teachers. All the teachers that I know just came over here and then looked for work. I did the same thing and I had a job within a week. But for those less adventurous people who want to have something set up before they come over here, there are a number of Recruiting agencies listed in the 'Jobs' section of my links page.

And now a few words about the contract you will have to sign. Contracts must be renewed each year. Starting pay seems to range between 500 and 600 dollars per hour, depending on where and what you teach. If you have just come over and then started looking around for work you could ask around and do better than this. Most places will offer you twenty to twenty-five hours per week. Make sure that these hours are guaranteed in the contract. Accommadation and air-fares aren't generally provided but if you need a place to stay the school owner can usually provide you with something temporary, even if it is just a corner in the cellar. And whern it is, it is only for people recruited from other countries and the starting pay will be less to cover these expenses.

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Where can I teach

There are a number of different options open to you here, Universities, High Schools, Elementary Schools Kindergartens, Bushibans (private cram schools) and privates.

Jobs in Universities, Colleges, etc. are few and far between. They are the cream of the crop so the competition for them can be intense. You'll probably need at least a Master's Degree and be able to speak some Chinese to have a chance at getting a job here. Working here is great as you work short hours and get plenty of paid vacations. Add to that the social position and respect that goes with being a University teacher in a Confucian society and you'll see why they are so sought after.

Here is a list of Universities, Colleges and Junior Colleges in Taiwan.

Stephen G. Craft's interesting article "Foreigners and Taiwan's Academia".

High Schools are a little easier to get into than Universities as there are more of them. They too work short hours and have long paid vacations. You'll still need a Masters Degree and be able to speak reasonable Chinese.

Teaching English at Elementary Schools is a relatively new thing over here. There are two types of Elementary School, government and private. I'm not sure how it works at the government schools but most private schools have English on their curricula. The importance they place on this subject varies from school to school. You won't get enough work to support yourself from one school but they make a great suppliment to your income. Lots of private Elementary schools also subcontract their teachers from the Bushibans.

Kindergartens have decided to get into English teaching, too. The good news is that many kindergartens take teaching English seriously and have developed a program where children are taught English on a daily basis. These places hire a full-time English teacher and pay very well. They only work during the day so you will have your evenings free. If you are up to it you can easily get a couple of privates and make a bit of extra money. Although after a hard day teaching kids this option may not seem so attractive. Unfortunately for the vast majority of kindergartens English just doesn't rate that highly on their list of priorities. They have a foreign teacher come in once a week for a 30 or 40 minute lesson. Although the money is good, you can practically charge them any price you like, these classes can be frustrating as the pace of learning is very slow. The kids tend to forget almost everything that you've taught them between one lesson and the next. You just have to play lots of games with them and hope that they pick up some English along the way. Just so long as the kids like you, enjoy your classes and learn one or two things a semester than the boss will be happy and think you are a great teacher.

And then there's bushibans - private cram schools. This is where most 'expats' end up working. The mainstay of the bushibans is children, so expect to teach lots of them. You will teach adults and High School students, but ninety percent of your teaching will be kids. The quality of these schools varies greatly. Some schools care about the education that they are offering the children. They are a joy to work for. And some are simply money making ventures where the boss doesn't want to know about any problems you may have. Their attitude is, "You are the teacher - teach".

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Who will I teach

As stated above, expect to teach children and lots of them. This is where the market is. Which is OK as kids can be a lot of fun though tiring and stressful. They're just like kids anywhere, if you want to keep their attention you have to amuse them. So the more you clown it up the better teacher you will be. They are also a long term prospect. Because their parents make them learn English they will be with you from the first to the last book in the series. By that time they have probably finished Elementary school so you could get them as a High School student. What you teach children isn't too difficult, it's basically just vocab, sentence patterns and verb forms. The trick is in how you teach it.

High School students are a different kettle of fish. They're looking for more depth in their studies. With them you'll have to go into usage and meaning. Grammar and usage, rather than conversational ability, is the what they study at High School. You don't need to keep them amused so it isn't as physically stressful. Here the stress is mental, they'll ask you question right out of left field. You'll always find yourself looking things up. So make friends with your reference books.

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Teaching privates

And then there's the privates. Private students are the cream in your coffee. You won't make a living teaching only privates but that extra income is very tasty. They are an open secret. You aren't supposed to take privates but everybody knows you do. Just don't talk about it with your boss and everything will be alright.

You can pick up privates anywhere. The usual way is by word of mouth. The mother (it always seems to be the mother) of one of your students will bring a friend along and ask you if you want to teach their friends son or daughter. But you can get privates anywhere. You can be sitting in McDonalds eating a burger for lunch and someone will come up and start talking to you. After a few minutes if they decide they like you they'll ask you to be their teacher. I even had a woman follow me home one day and ask me to teach her daughter. She was with me for three years.

Privates come in a variety of flavors. You'll get housewives who want to get out of the house. Although they are interested in learning English they don't want an in depth study of English usage or grammar. What they're looking for is a chatty, fun-filled couple of hours every week.

There's the businessman wanting to study business English. He wants to impress his boss with his ability to speak English and to do business with other people from overseas.

Some people just like English. They have studied English for many years. They just want conversation to practice their English. So you just sit around talking with them for an hour or two every week.

Then there's the person who wants to immigrate. They come to you and say, I'm going to wherever in three months - teach me English. You do the best you can.

You also get the person who thinks of it as just a toy. They decide that they want to learn English but have no real commitment or motivation to learn. They'll be alright for a couple of weeks and then start to cancel classes and instead of teaching them twice a week you'll end up teaching them once every two weeks. Privates generally pay by the month, so at the end of one of these terms they'll just drift away.

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"Minorities" in Taiwan

Minorities, for the purposes of this article, are non-white foreigners. This includes people such as non-Taiwanese Chinese, Black people, etc. Also, my experience in this matter is limited, I've personally only known one such case. - He was a Chinese American with a degree in childcare and the owner of the school I was working for at the time offered him a job teaching in a Kindergarten, but he decided to take a job offer in another city. - So most of what I have to say in this section is based on what I have found out through the grapevine, mailing lists and discussion forums.

Although it is not as easy for 'minorities' to find work and the pay isn't as good, there are jobs if you want to make the effort to find it. The reason for this is a simple matter of economics. Most schools are businesses and are therefore profit making ventures. The parents of the students want a white face in front of the class. And if this school can't provide one, then the school up the road can.

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When is the best time to come over

There is a lot of debate on this subject, but it boils down to where you want to teach - regular schools or bushibans. Regular schools do most of their hiring about a month or six weeks before the start of a new semester. But there are often jobs available throughout the rest of the year. So coming over at the beginning of January or July would be the best time, but keep in mind that jobs are where and when you find them.

As for bushibans, the demand for teachers never ceases. True, things may slow down during summer and winter vacations, but they don't stop.

Another thing that you should be aware of is the Taiwanese tax year. It a little different than in Western countries in that it ends on December 31. There is a rule that anybody who has been in Taiwan for less than 183 days of the current tax year must pay income tax at a rate of 20%, otherwise you pay the normal tax rate of 6%. That means when you arrived in Taiwan as judged by the entry stamp in your passport, not when you started working. Of course you get it all back in your tax return, but who wants to pay that much in the first place. So it is a good idea to arrive in the country before June 28.

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