A few points.
Cicero, one of Rome’s greatest public speakers [106 BC to 43 BC] had a different perspective on the “speak a lot” approach. He pointed out that as well as speaking you should write as much as possible. In “De Oratore” Cicero had the orator Crassus explain that while speaking ex tempore, off-the-cuff, has some value and builds confidence, it often just leads people to talk a lot while saying nothing of substance! Cicero concludes therefore that writing is “the most effective and fruitful practice of all” and your writing habits can then lead to fluent speech.
Writing is very hard work but LynxAI on LingQ is certainly now useful in developing your output skills, and I do think that writing can be neglected in the “rush to speak”.
You will perhaps have seen recommendations by both Luca Lampariello and Olly Richards to use Langua? That is a programme that is available 24/7, and gives you a transcript and feedback on your conversation with a reasonably lifelike robot. In comparison with paying a professional tutor or attending classes, online or face-to-face, it works out to be very cost-effective.
Langua on the one hand is perhaps overly positive about your faltering ability to speak, but at least that is supportive at any level. However, you need to get used to the system, as it is a bit disorienting at first, and there often seem to be glitches. If you are like most of us and you aspire to “perfectionism” you can be easily disheartened at first with Langua when looking at a transcript of all your stammering “ums” and “ahs” and are often ready to kick yourself looking back at all the “unforced errors”, particularly of grammar. But then it is AI - so better to make your mistakes with such a device than, embarrassingly, with a real person?
Talking to yourself can be helpful, particularly if you are rehearsing phrases, “chunks” and even Boris Shekhtman “islands” you might want to use in conversations. But you are unlikely to be correcting your own mistakes, until perhaps Professor Krashen’s “monitor hypothesis” kicks in to “check, correct and polish” your language…
Some people find having a tandem partner helpful, but personally I have found the 50/50 aspect somewhat distracting, getting the appropriate compatability of interests is often quite difficult, and it is certainly too easy to relapse into banal “small talk”. Cicero’s warning definitely comes to mind here!
The advantage of being in a class is that fellow classmates are generally extremely supportive and never criticise your inevitable clumsiness when speaking. Depending on the class teacher you either get severe corrections, leading sometimes to “paralysis”, or you get no corrections at all on either spoken or written work, so a lot depends on choosing a teacher and an institution. And of course with a sizeable group and not wishing to monopolise the conversation you actually get very little speaking time.
italki is something I would definitely recommend, and again it depends on the teacher and how you approach the interaction, italki is one-on-one and with nowhere to hide! How best to use italki or other similar online systems would probably require a complete discussion all by itself, but inevitably you will need to pay at a professional level, so this is not necessarily a cheap option.
My advice is to use a combination of all such methods to speak well, as they all have their advantages and disadvantages. And if you happen to come across a native speaker, or indeed be in the country where your target language is spoken, take absolutely every opportunity to prolong any conversations that you are engaged in…!
