Hi Zona. All centres that offer the Cambridge ESOL exams have to be assessed periodically by external assessors from Cambridge. Each new cohort of trainees for the CELTA course for example will also be asked (in confidence) by an external assessor about the quality of the course and trainers. The external assessor will also observe some of the lessons given by the trainees. This is a form of quality control. I don't know if this is true for all centres across the world, but Cambridge values its "brand" and the requirements for gettting accreditation and maintaining it are stringent. If I was working in this area of teacher training in the UK I would be pushing for the university to offer course in Mandarin as China is by far the biggest market for foeign teachers.

The Cheltenham Language Centre, University of Gloucestershire, UK offers French and Spanish in addition to ESL teacher training. I think this would be a good place to do your course for that reason alone. It means there will be qualified teachers who have focused on foreign language teaching and there will be cross-fertlisation of pedagogy and methodology. As part of a university set-up, it is also likely to have a decent library and be better-resourced.

In my case I chose a university's School of Modern Languages to do my course, but not Cheltenham as my residence was elsewhere. The CELTA trainers were all UK qualified and experienced teachers and also had DELTA. The head of department also taught "A" Level French. We had a lesson in Japanese as part of the course to put us in the position of beginners, so we could understand what it's like to be in a language class as adults. Most of the trainees on my course were all qualified UK teachers, (many of them were English teachers), but others had no experience of language teaching at all. Although many of us had spent years in education, we still found parts of the course hard-going, so expect to work long into the evening and all weekends for the duration of the course. Borrow or buy the CELTA trainees handbook and the teacher's book. It was not published when I did my course, but I've looked at it subsequently and it's fine.

If you search this particular forum there are lists and posts on the set reading for the course.

Why not visit the centre before making your decision, and check if what I have said about the possible advantages are true? Look at the facilities, browse in the library, and talk to staff. Some university centres only offer courses during the summer holidays, so you have a few months to do further research and some reading.

Good luck

CL