Hi folks!

I'd like to invite you to discuss the effective ways of improving one's speaking.

Obviously, to become more fluent, you need to constantly learn and use new vocabulary and grammar, that's why casual small talk in a foreign language might not be helpful enough to achieve significant progress.

I guess, one of the options is to have some planned conversations based on a topic you are interested in, with a proper preparation, for example: reading an article or watching a video, learning the new words and expressions, summing up the contents and then telling your own opinion about it.

Another idea that I found useful is to choose a conversational situation from any exam list (IELTS, etc.), prepare a plan and a key-word list and discuss it with a time limit (e.g. 5-7 minutes).

Does anyone have more ideas? What strategies and methods do you consider the most efficient?