To work legally in Taiwan teaching EFL, a foreigner needs two basic things
1. citizenship of a country where the official language is English, eg. US, UK, Canada, etc..
2. A BA degree in any subject. The BA must be from a recognised university. Diploma Mills will not be accepted.
No TEFL certification is currently required. TEFL certification is not especially recognised unless it is part of a degree program.
These are official requirements set by MOE in Taiwan. There is no flexibility really in the minimum requirements, though plenty of space for upward mobility.
Forumosa discusses this at length… here
http://forumosa.com/taiwan/viewforum.php?f=35
Life experience degrees are generally of little merit in education departments around the world, unless they specifically include considerable coursework and credits for experience. While I am in no way an expert on this, I would reckon that you’d be wasting good money and undermining your credibility as a teacher by passing yourself with this kind of degree.
IF you don’t believe me, read this story, there are some good links in this story: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,66476,00.html
As a word of advice, it is unlikely you will be able to get legal work here as you are unqualified by the government’s definition. You may be able to find illegal work, but you run the risk of deportation and your boss will likely be fined a considerable amount of money (the fines currenlty run at $750,000 NT.
For more information, please visit the TESOL forums above.
Best Wishes in your Career, and thanks for provoking an interesting discussion on our discussion group.
Best Wishes
Kenneth J. Dickson