tungemål wrote:I had one Italki-lesson yesterday for speaking practice.
I must say my speaking skills are not great, even though I have improved my German overall. Of course, this was the first time I spoke German in a month. The problem is that I am slow because I need time to think, that I make mistakes if I am not careful, and that common sentence constructions don't come easily. For listening and reading I am good and there my level is enough for C1, but not for speaking.
How to work with this without booking 100 italki-lessons?
I had exactly that problem in French, and one of the things I did to solve it was to meet up with a couple of fellow learners once a week to speak French. We were three people who met at a café for around an hour and just spoke French about anything we felt like talking about. This was a "French only" zone for us, meaning that we only communicated with each other in French, including when messaging each other to cancel or change the time. For me, that was a very efficient, and agreeable, way of dealing with that problem. Plenty of speaking opportunities for all of us, and a very safe and comfortable environment.
You could probably get some of the same effect out of talking to yourself at home, but it's a little weird. It's much more enjoyable, inspiring and natural if you have someone to talk to. And with the specific problems you describe, you don't need natives. The good thing about fellow learners is that they have the same motivation as you do for the project, and I also think it's better, in this particular situation, to use fellow learners that a tandem partner, because that allows you to keep that "target language zone", and after a while you immediately start thinking in your target language when you meet those people (provided you stick to the rule that you always use your target language together).
