Here is some basic info for anyone considering a TEFL career in Taiwan. I'll present an outline first, followed by more details later. This brings together a lot of information scattered about, as well as much information that I had never come across on-line or which I had found to be confused or contradictory. I hope that it will be useful to you. It is not meant to scare anyone: I love being in Taiwan, but I just wish that I was more informed before coming.

The Taiwanese are the nicest people to foreign teachers that one can imagine. They are forever helpful and welcoming.

You'll have lots of disposable income because your income is far above the national average. However, the overhead of getting there, getting established, and of returning, means that your savings may not be significant after your first year. If you stay longer, then things will look very good.

Many of the conveniences and foods of the West can be found where you live or at a nearby city.

There is a huge number of English schools in Taiwan. The problem is that much of the demand is due to high turnover. And you really gotta watch out for the schools: while they're not malicious, they may well put you in situations which could cost you!

http://www.cla.gov.tw/, The Council of Labor Affairs (CLA), is the governmental body you can take grievances to.

Taiwan's air is not discernibly more polluted than most major Western cities. Just don't ride a scooter! Simple.

Here is more detailed info on some of the good things about teaching English in Taiwan.

You can respectfully observe the public minutiae of daily life and rituals w/o fear of offending the local hotheads -- which could be the case in some other countries.

Cost of living in Taiwan is not low: the locals do complain about inflation. But your income is so far above the national average that you can live very comfortably as well as put aside money. You're getting above a professional's wages.

Once you get settled in a not-too-bad school, you can certainly save significant money. It will take you more than 1 year, and may well take you a few years, to get to that point, but it will get there (I'm told). And the lifestyle is pretty good.

It's a cliche, but the mix of the modern and the traditional (esp. religious) make for a fascinating view. And it's a small island that can be easy to explore.

If the school lays you off, then they have to give you 2 months' notice (which is the typical notice period for premature contract cancellation), or instead give you severance pay. Any lay-off has to be with the same 2-month notice that you have to give them. The CLA has confirmed this.

(AFAIK: If they try to fire you by accusing you of misconduct, incompetence, failing a student survey, etc, then they have to give you written notices and provide opportunities for improvement and follow-up assessments; it is non-trivial to prove justifiable cause. Confirm with the CLA.)

If you are an hourly worker, and they don't give you enough hours, you are not bound by the 2-month notice. You can talk to the CLA, and walk.
(I suspect that, if you used to be full-time, and they then drastically cut your hours, then there may be grounds for arguing that this is a de facto lay-off. In that case, severance pay may be due. Confirm with the CLA.)

Taiwan's air is not polluted!

(Now pause. Take a deep breath (no pun). And read on.) Well, the air is not discernibly/any more polluted than any major Western cities you've been to.

I have certainly read official reports of pollution in Taiwan. But similar ones do exist about the foreign teachers' (FT) home countries; the very ones which they ignore, if not dismiss.

So why do people say this? I will not go into the causes, but will instead recount a specific case.

I once ran into a FT complaining about the air in a small town with no nearby sources of pollution. He talked as well of soot on his face and in his apartment, neither of which I had experienced. I asked him if he was riding a scooter. The answer was yes. By riding in a pack of scooters, you are effectively sitting in a tunnel of exhaust fumes.

If you break this habit long enough, then you can address the question of whether, outside that tunnel, the level of air pollution is discernibly more or less than that of the smog-infested Western cities you've come from. IMHO, ordinary respiratory organs cannot. Scientific assessment may well suggest otherwise, but I fully expect that their comparable judgements have existed for half the places I've lived in.

Either way, one thing is for sure: if the first thing you do upon arrival is to buy a decrepit 2-stroke scooter, then you've forfeited any right to complain about the problem you're contributing to.

Here is the bad news about teaching English in Taiwan.

- Savings.
You won't be making much money in your first year. Sorry!
Exception: People who live a spartan lifestyle for a whole year in school-provided accommodation, and who somehow had low initial costs.
The reasons include the costs of coming here, of getting established, and of your return. In addition, your tax rate would be 20%, and a Western lifestyle costs more.
Those who don't complete their year (and there seems to be no shortage of them) return in the red. Exceptions, if any, may include those with some sort of parental support back home eg housing.
I expect that the actual number of people who can save significantly during their first year is as representative as that of those who (claim to) earn $100k.
If you stay for more than 1 year, then your finances will look quite good. However, this assumes that you have not changed location, haven't run into schools which don't give you hours, and haven't paid any penalties for contract cancellations et al, and any visa runs have been successfully done on the cheap.
It takes a few years to find a good school -- so I hear. There are success stories posted out there, but people tend to forget what they had to go thru in order to get to where they are. And that struggle costs money. For example, in your first year, you will have, at best, an inadequate idea of how to time the whole give notice + find job + health check + Work Permit + ARC process. Schools, on the other hand, have been doing this for years. You may easily find yourself signing up, in a hurry, with a bad school for your 2nd year. This will cost you.
Note also that pay rates here have not gone up in years, and in fact seem to have dropped recently. Furthermore, the (2008) recession has hit here as well as in the rest of the world.

- Not as many jobs as it seems.

There is a huge number of English schools in Taiwan. But much of the demand is due to the high turnover. One would expect that the good jobs don't come on the market often. And some schools seem to be constantly hiring! Much like other industries, schools seem to have a liking for wide-eyed newbies. And there's a plane-load of the latter coming twice a year. ... It's a cargo cult of sorts, the TEFL business here!
They do prefer employees with some experience, of course, but so long as it is on their terms. It does not behove the hire to wise up on contracts and rights, let alone on non-perfunctory teaching methods.
So, if we take out the duplicated ads, the illegal kindies, and the part-time jobs, and dare even to avoid the most objectionable contracts, then I wonder how many would be left. There is a huge number of schools, but how many are kindies, and how many do not have a high turnover? In brief, how many good ones are on the market in proportion to the number of applicants?

- Illegalities: Taxes
I've never dealt with a school here which did everything legally! (Other people have echoed this as well.) My policy is to not get _my_ hands dirty. Thus if they don't pay taxes, I make sure that _my_ taxes are paid. Always get each pay slip _and_ your Withholding statements.

- Illegalities: Demos
Most/all schools want you to do a demo. Some get you to do it in front of staff members acting as students. Most want it in front of real students. The latter is illegal unless if they do the following:
1. the principal has to be present;
2. your CV has to be on the table in front of the principal;
3. most importantly, there has to be a notice on the classroom door stating the date and time of the demo, and how many teachers will be demoing.

The length of the demo is immaterial to the CLA, and even payment. (Yes, I, too, was surprised by the latter but this is what the CLA told me.)
Schools will assure you that you can ignore the above. However, if there is a raid, you will be deported, and they will get only a fine. Raids do happen, and foreign teachers (FTs) do get deported. You will be stupid not to demand the above.

- Illegalities: Kindies
You cannot work in kindergartens. All these places advertising morning classes with "very young" pupils are hiring you illegally. People do argue the minutiae, and split legal hairs, but your ass is daily exposed to deportation. (Don't ask me how Hess does it. I suspect better juridical juggling than other schools'!)

- Illegalities: Privates
Most FTs aren't permitted to teach private classes on the side. If you do engage in this, then, in the least, you've forfeited your right to whine about the schools' illegalities.

- Illegalities: Probation
Some contracts include a probationary period. This has no legal basis. The CLA has stated this categorically.

- Illegalities: Deposits and penalties
buxiban.com is your source for this. In brief, schools can't withhold money from your pay cheques, and they can't penalise you for sick leave. (Sick days are unpaid, though.)

- Council of Labor Affairs (CLA)
This is the governmental body you can take grievances to.
You may not think much of the illegality of kindergartens. However, the CLA is your only recourse, and, in the face of all the misconduct by the schools, you will need them. They got me out of a mess which took others months to get out of.
N.B. They are impartial, so present your case meticulously.

- Housing
Unless if you live in the 3 big cities, apartments may not live up to your lowered expectations. Think no kitchen, no bathtub, and no shower stall. The glitz of Taipei, and all those shiny cars, can be deceptive.
And the rest may not be what you would have signed up to live in for a whole year, had you not already signed the school contract and paid the inbound costs. Add this to the brew, and you'll understand the midnight run.
My policy is that, though I negotiate the contract beforehand, I sign it alongside the lease. One school in a small town did not even let you sign the contract until you'd physically moved in!
The crude cliche of family-centred Chinese life manifests itself in towns which barely have any housing for singles. Unless if it is a university town, the apartments are little more than pigeon boxes for those who work away from home, and run back to their 'real' towns on the weekend. In one case, there was no laundry machine in the building, and no laundromat in the town! Meanwhile, expensive cars and modern, for-sale family houses abound!
Initially, I'd assumed that the reason why some schools offer 'free' accommodation is because creative accounting made them money. But, it seems to be a basic necessity as well.
On the plus side, rents are a very small portion of your income.

- No real vacation time
There really is no time off. No vacation for the first year. Most schools want some sort of Saturday work. Chinese New Year holidays are not necessarily long, and flights are expensive and hard to book at that time. Unpaid leave is negotiable in only some schools.
If you do get 2 days off, though, it is easy to see the island in a hurry. Nearby countries are cheap. too.

Here are some worse aspects, edited for this site!
Again, it is not meant to scare, but to inform you. I have a bit of a love affair with this country: I knew, within a few months of arrival, that I would miss this place if/when I were to leave it; I still feel the same. However, as thoroughly well-researched and informed as I was prior to arrival, much of the picture presented on this page was either absent or incoherent to me.

- Foreign teachers (FTs) are disposable!
The days of 'you just need a pulse to teach in Taiwan' are well over. Think stacks of CVs. Even small towns can get picky.
There is simply no cost to obtaining a new FT. They do not pay the airfare, do not pay for the visa processing (ARC, health, and sometimes work permit), and _you_ get to pay for much of the training.
If you don't stay the full year, hiring costs for the school are relatively small when compared to the costs to you of finding a new job or of moving. In one case, the school was not even prepared to pay for the work permit until at least 3 months had passed! IOW, they don't risk even that fee! The result is that hiring new FTs is only an inconvenience (albeit a major one) but not a financial loss. Tossing you is almost cost-free!
That is not to say that they toss you readily; some do, but not all. But the fact is that the school has no assurance whatsoever that you're going to be around for long anyway. So why bother? Especially when the next plane-load will bring fresh meat.

- Two words: throat surgery!
No, this is not a prevalent problem! It may have been the case in only one school I worked at. However, as a low probability, high impact issue, it deserves mention.
Voice problems are an occupational hazard for teachers everywhere. If your classes (or classrooms) are large, and your director is reluctant to approve more than 1 sick day (and grudgingly at that), then a cold will get aggravated. Add to this the increased frequency of health issues in your first year, and the germ-carrying capacity of the little ones, and the effect of typhoons, and you may end up with lasting damage to your vocal cords. At one school, a Chinese teacher (CT) disappeared after needing throat surgery, and I heard of another as well. A good warning sign is if the CTs are using voice amplifiers (though perhaps we all should).

- Tax slips.
Your employer has to give you a Tax Withholding Statement early in the year. You have to file your taxes by 31 May. If these fail to happen, then the consequences will be as follows: you cannot change to another school; you won't be allowed to fly out of the country.
One school lied about both, presumably to stop me from changing schools or from jumping on a plane. Another said that they will take care of all tax issues for me, and that I don't need any papers; they even presented this as a hiring benefit!
In brief, you need the Withholding statement, the yellow slip you get when you file your taxes (it's torn off from the bottom of your tax return form), and the Individual Income Tax Statement of the Republic of China. The latter is what the tax office will have 2 months or so after you've filed, and can only be obtained in your filing region. That is, if you have moved, you'll have to arrange for the tax office of your previous region to send it to you. Opinions vary as to whether they automatically send it to everyone in the same manner that North American revenue departments send post-filing assessments; you may have to go there with your passport and ARC in order to ask for its print-out.
And make sure that you get a pay slip every month, showing all your deductions. Run like mad from any school that suggests otherwise.
Again: the school has to give you a pay slip every month, and a Tax Withholding Statement early in the year; the government, a yellow slip and an Individual Income Tax Statement.

- Discipline
In a nutshell: Discipline is best done by a Chinese speaker. I cannot go into it here, but just say that schools seem increasingly to cut back on Chinese Teachers (CT). CTs used to be present in every class and, amongst other things, would enforce discipline. Their absence can well cause nightmares for you.

- The first few months.
The first 2-3 months of teaching a new set of books requires far more preparation time than it will at the end of the year. Think take-home work! Add to this the pressures of culture shock and unscrupulous employers, and you will understand the attrition rate.

- No such thing as a good school!
It takes a few years to find a good school -- so I hope, surmise and sometimes hear. But I am yet to see a 'good' job (or a bad one) that didn't put an unacceptable contract in front of me!
Asking for modifications in a contract takes skill (see tealit -- and that presumes that the chain's head office permits modification) and time (see experience -- in tackling the visa time-line). In a saturated market with responses of "Send us your resume. If we're interested, we'll call you," the next whitey's resume is pulled off the stack instead. Remember that you've put up all the expense for getting there; they do none until after you finish a whole year. It costs them nothing! The
business model works by having a lot of first-worlders put up the money for their hiring process.
So here's the situation: you've paid money to get to here, (and may have abandoned a job in the process,) are on a limited-time visa, it will cost you to get back and get re-established, you've spent time and money to do interviews & demos, and this is the 4th abusive contract placed in front of you. What would you do?
It is the plethora of come-on-down, big-money ads, the perpetual stories of so-and-so who saved/made gobs of money, and the veterans' implications of negotiable contracts and a treacherous-but-manageable maze which continue the supply of fodder for the cram-school machine.

- Demos and smiling
Some school directors have an obsession with smiling that borders on pathological. You have to smile during demos even if the conditions preclude it for any sane person.