Editing Professional certification (section)

=== Language education ===
[[English language learning and teaching|TESOL]] is a large field of employment with widely varying degrees of regulation. Most provision worldwide is through the [[state school]] system of each individual country, and as such, the instructors tend to be trained primary- or [[secondary school]] teachers who are [[native speakers]] of the language of their pupils, and not of English. Though native speakers of English have been working in non-English speaking countries [[TEFL|in this capacity]] for years, it was not until the last twenty-five years or so that there was any widespread focus on training particularly for this field. Previously, workers in this sort of job were people engaging in [[backpacker tourism]] hoping to earn some extra travel money or well-educated professionals in other fields [[volunteering]], or retired people. These sort of people are certainly still to be found, but there are many who consider TESOL their main profession.

One of the problems{{According to whom|date=April 2017}} facing these full-time teachers is the absence of an international governing body for the certification or licensure of English language teachers. However, [[University of Cambridge|Cambridge University]] and its subsidiary body [[UCLES]] are pioneers in trying to get some degree of accountability and quality control to consumers of English courses, through their [[CELTA]] and [[DELTA (ELT)|DELTA]] programs. [[Trinity College London]] has equivalent programs, the [[CertTESOL]] and the [[LTCL DipTESOL]]. They offer initial certificates in teaching, in which candidates are trained in [[language]] awareness and [[classroom]] techniques, and given a chance to practice teaching, after which feedback is reported. Both institutions have as a follow-up a professional diploma, usually taken after a year or two in the field. Although the initial certificate is available to anyone with a high school education, the diploma is meant to be a post-graduate qualification and can in fact be incorporated into a master's degree program.