European Moving to Taiwan with spouse!

Work Teaching English in Taiwan
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Hi, don’t know if this is the right place to post a few questions. I’m sure these questions have been asked and answered before however can’t seem to find much information regarding my situation. Basically just looking for some advice, or feedback rather.

My wife is Taiwanese, and I am from Malta, Europe. We live in Dubai at the moment however plan to move to Taiwan (will be my first time) in December. She has a job secured however I am quite worried about my situation. I was hoping to teach English, as it is my country’s official language, however not native language. Actually in Malta, we do teach English to many foreigners, mostly European as we follow the British A-level curriculum. I also have an Honors Degree in Science (B.Sc Hons) however don’t know if that would mean much to any employers in Taiwan based on the many comments I’ve read in this forum.

I’m planning also to do TEFL or TESOL, and maybe CELTA as time progresses (as its also available to follow back home). I would like to know what are my chances of being a non native speaker but someone who has a Bachelor Degree and is coming from an ex-commonwealth country, where everything is in English. Would you know of any non-native speakers who have managed to find employment in Taiwan as English Teachers?

I can’t say I have the whitest of skins either, we are more Mediterranean/olive Europeans (sorry to even ask but I’ve seen some pretty strange comments on this forum on how skin colour is everything unfortunately).

Thank you and hope to hear from anybody,
Stephen

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Stephen the best information I have is that if English is the official language of your country you can teach here legally. You may want to review the more recent posts of this long thread

forumosa.com/taiwan/viewtop … 5&t=116014

Note: some would disagree with my assertion above, and subscribe to the perhaps conventional wisdom that one must have a passport from one of the “7 nations”. I think it seems clear that legally speaking this is not the case. At the practical point of being hired by a school appearance, passport and accent will play a role, but an “olive” complexion may not be such a huge issue. Being married to a Taiwanese person probably should ultimately trump all these issues. In fact it occurs to me somewhat too late that if you can get a Joining Family Resident Visa–and being married to a Taiwanese person I don’t see why not–the legal issues are moot.

Out of curiosity, what’s your native language?

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Thank you for the quick reply Tempo. I really do hope that my passport does not cause as many problems as I have read it might, being a non- ‘native’ speaking passport. If I could also ask one more question, regarding the Visa type. Would I be eligible for an APRC or a different kind of spouse VISA?

And to answer your question regarding our native language; we actually have our own language which is Maltese, its an official EU language and is based on Italian, (however unfortunately it faces a slow immitent death from our small society as with most mother tongues I suppose). Thank you again for the help Tempo