Hi Silverboy. You've raised a whole range of issues here, so I'll try to provide a few answers, opinions and observations. The CELTA trainers I had for my course, which was several years ago, were well-qualified and experienced. The external moderator from Cambridge was also top notch. I would guess that the relentless pace of the intensive course was a bit too much for the primary school teacher, but she also had some personal issues in her life. I was fortunate in that my previous experience in education (at all levels) and in training (teachers and corporate), meant I wasn't starting from scratch.

The grammar apects of the CELTA course have a practical focus in that we were expected to do a language analysis sheet for each lesson. This process encourages trainees to look at the grammatical structure and anticipate any problems, especially when related to difficulties that may arise because of L1.

China has a huge publishing industry for textbooks. Some textbooks are just British and American books that have been amended for the Chinese market. In some cases those amendments are litle more than a preface:in other cases, for teaching English, the key vocabulary is explained in both English and Mandarin. Examples of the former would be New Interchange 3rd edition and IELTS 7 with answers - Official Examination papers from University of Cambridge ESOL Examinations. Then there are the specific titles for the national examinations like the College English Test(CET) and Test for English Majors (TEM). As a generalisation, titles from the Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, Beijing, are not bad. I've also used sections from Contemporary College English (Intermediate) for writing courses and BEC for business English.

We have two libraries where I work. The main univeristy library holds the major collections for science and technology and the School of Foreign Languages (SOFL) has material covering the teaching of English, which includes a good selection of English novels, psychology, linguistics and translation, Greek and Roman mythology, business studies, cross-cultural studies etc. The SOFL librarian is a close friend and she will order materials and equipment I think are useful. The SOFL Chinese teachers I work with have all done Master's courses abroad, mainly in the UK and America, and some of them have donated their course books to the library at the end of their courses. There is also online access to academic journals. I could use textbooks for all of my courses and they will be provided, but I prefer to mix and match and write my own courses.

It all comes down to what we are contracted to teach. My main focus has not been on oral English teaching, although I have had some classes of non-English majors(3rd year). When teaching writing for example, I have to correct student essays of anything between 300 and 1,500 words depending on the level of the students. In that context I really do have to focus on grammar, punctuation, style and meaning.

As for training in situ, we only employ experienced and qualified teachers here, so we are all expected to hit the ground running. The only minor problem I had when I first came to this university was entering my course grades for the
examinations on the uni's intranet. It is all in Chinese, but with the help of a student and some 'print screen' prompts, it's straightforward now.

If Jo presses on, I am sure she will benefit from the CELTA course.