• Start or expand more so-called "immersion" schools that teach tribal students mostly in their traditional languages. To do so, school districts near reservations should consider helping tribes start immersion charter schools.

• Start or expand existing mentoring programs that pair an elder native speaker with a young learner paid to do intensive study and become a fluent language teacher.

• Revive a now-defunct state program that once helped pay for native language teaching in schools for tribal students.

• Continue and expand efforts by University of Wisconsin System professors to help tribes document and record the knowledge of their elders.

• Revise the federal No Child Left Behind law to remove obstacles to tribes seeking to start and expand immersion schools.

• Continue and expand federal grants that have helped fund some of the state's most innovative tribal language programs.

• Share effective methods of preserving languages, such as immersion schools and mentoring programs, between Wisconsin tribes.

• Leverage technology. Tribal language workers are already using podcasts, language CDs and even voice-activated, handheld digital translators developed by the military. But use of technology remains uneven across tribes.