The Department of Education respectfully submits this "Report to the Legislature: English Language Acquisition Professional Development" pursuant to Chapter 61 of the Acts of 2007, line item 7027-1004, and pursuant to G.L c. 69s.1I, the Department of Education addressing several provisions. School district implementation of sheltered English immersion (SEI) began in school districts in September 2003 and has two components, English as a Second Language (ESL) instruction and sheltered content instruction taught in English, with all printed classroom materials in English. The change from Transitional Bilingual Education (TBE) to sheltered English immersion has had a substantial impact on the skills and knowledge needed by elementary and secondary subject matter content teachers of English language learners. The Department is currently using a combination of state and federal funds to support the second year of the Massachusetts English Language Teacher Initiative (MELT), designed to provide instruction, support and mentoring to 40 licensed teachers currently employed in Boston Public Schools and Worcester Public Schools who wish to become licensed ESL teachers. There are 290 school districts that report at least one English language learner, but ESL teachers are employed in only 129 districts. More districts currently need ESL teachers due to changing demographics, but face a shortage of available teachers. Attachments 7 and 8 present district data on English language learners in Massachusetts by school district and English language learner program type using October 2007 data and the number of students in identified first language classifications. Data are provided for the five most common first languages of English language learners in Massachusetts: Spanish, Portuguese, Khmer, Vietnamese, and Creole Haitian. (Contains 4 footnotes.)