(1) Come over here to find a job if you want a good job that pays well.
(2) Bring plenty of money, at least US$2000 and find yourself a hostel (see links) to stay in till you can get an apartment. If you turn up hungry and with no money they will eat you alive!
(3) Enroll in a language course so you can get a student visa. You should try and get an extendable visa before you come to save yourself a trip to Hong Kong (see the FAQ for visa info and how to go to HK).
(4) Go job hunting (teacher agents ph numbers will be in the hostels) and find yourself three or so part-time jobs so you're not too dependent on any one school. Eg kindy for 2-3 hours in the morning and a couple of bushiban (cram school) jobs in the afternoon with say eight hours at each to give you about 30 hours. At 600/h or more this will be about NT$70000 (US$2000).
(5) If you can't speak Chinese before you start you should see if they provide an assistant Chinese teacher. For the kindys this is pretty much automatic but not at the bushibans. Many foreign teachers have trouble controlling the kids and a Chinese teacher will save you a lot of shouting, stress and also perhaps being fired. These 5 steps will offer the best chance of success in Taiwan in my opinion.
Heres the long explanation which you can read if you want:
(1) Almost all the jobs advertised overseas don't pay very and usually have other serious drawbacks like having to do lots of unpaid prep. South Africans especially often get recruited for as little as half the going wage...
(2) Money is very important. If you have no money maybe you could try Korea where they will reimburse airfare and give you free accommodation etc. In Taiwan it may take up to a month to get your schedule together. A lot depends on how personable and charming you can be. If you don't have such a dynamic personality, are older, not Nth American, etc it can be even harder. An Aussie couple came over, didn't find a job in 2 weeks, ran out of money and had to go home a couple of thousand dollars poorer. You don't want to be like them! Still you can speed things up by looking outside Taipei county (even outside Taoyuan county) if you're happy working in the smaller towns or by coming over the summer break when theres a lot more work (June till Aug) in Taipei. So lets say you find a job but they may take 2-4 weeks to pay so adding that to the job hunting period of say 2-4 weeks you should have funds to cover you for 1-2 months for food, accommodation, transport etc. You don't want to ask them for an advance. Thats an irresistible invitation for them to take advantage of you and you may find your pay on payday is less than it should be... After all they think you will be too desperate to leave and even if you do they can just get another teacher. Cheating to some degree is quite common over here. So this will require about $2000 or more just for living expenses. But if you want to apply for a student visa you will need to show funds of $2-3000 which means that you will need going on US$4-5000 after paying for the language course costs etc. If you can't afford that much you may have to get an ARC or do expensive visa runs to HK each month.
(3) Why not get a work visa instead of a student visa? People often experience problems with their schools once they get a work visa and an ARC. Initially I favored the work visa route given thats its legal and you can wire money abroad more easily but repeated bad experiences with this have brought me around to the position advocated by Battle-Scarred to whom I am much indebted for the basic approach advanced here. Basically they seem to think they "own" you after you have got your work visa. Sometimes its just an attitude thing with them applying more pressure, other times they will make you work longer hours, under pay you etc. They act as if they are your master although some masters are nicer than others. I have seen some schools treat their work visa holders very well but unfortunately it seems to be the exception rather than the rule. The bottom line is that if you just work at a school part-time they will generally treat you far better than if you are bound to them by a visa. There's a fairly high turnover of teachers in Taiwan and many are either fired or resign. These are more likely to be the ARC holders.
(4) Get a prepay cell phone (about NT$3000), a scooter if you're out of Taipei (about 7-10000) and some business cards printed up to get the work coming in as soon as possible. Your financial situation may force you to just take a full-time position with one school as soon as possible. Still when you aren't so dependent on any one school you can be more relaxed as when they know you aren't totally dependent they won't be as tempted to cheat you. Get three or so part-time jobs if you can. There's lots of kindy jobs in the morning. Try and find one with a good curriculum like Happy Marion rather than the ones where you do 30-40 mins intensive in each class. In the afternoon try and get block hours of 4 or so two days a week for one bushiban and the same again (on different days) for another bushiban. This is for Taipei where most teachers head to. Outside Taipei down south its a bit harder to work casually like this and a lot of jobs are just full-time where they want you to get a work visa. Still it can definitely be done although it takes longer than Taipei, you just need to get a scooter to get around. Its better to rent one unless you have an ARC (so you wouldn't have the cops chasing you for unpaid tickets in someone elses name) which is required to change ownership but you may need to get an internation drivers licence if you do. Public transport in cities like Kaohsuing is almost nonexistant.
(5) Longer term you can learn Chinese so you can communicate with the kids. Having 15 or more screaming kids is not always easy to control and many teachers get stressed and management isn't always very understanding. Once the kids realize you can't understand them saying things like "daubeen" (shit) you can lose respect very fast. A good Chinese teacher assistant can make all the difference. Unfortunately the key word here is "good". Another name these assistant teachers have been given is "resistant" teachers. In other words many of them aren't very helpful and will often not help at all and even just wander around out of the class. You will have to make an effort to butter them up and bring them on your side. Remember they are paid less than you, sometimes a lot less, and will do a better job of leading what they regard as their class so they have strong grounds for resentment. You can offer to do a trial at the school for the first few days just to see what its like. If they don't provide any assistant teachers and you are really having trouble you might suggest to them that they hire one or you can offer to pay for one yourself if they balk. Minimum wages for part-time work in Taiwan are only NT$66/h and if you offer $80/h for an unqualified person thats enough. You don't need to pay for a qualified teacher just someone like a college student who can keep them quiet and who needs some extra money. You will need to be getting a decent wage to make it worthwhile if you pay but the advantage is that you will be their boss so you don't have to make a big effort to butter them up as you will when teaching someone else's kids. Still you should learn to control the kids as quickly as possible. See how below:
For further tips see Teaching Tips For Maximizing Success In Taiwan and the FAQ.
