Thanks for those great tips! What I have personally found the most useful is: Drinking alcohol - haha, but seriosusly - just like you said, once you drink some alcohol you are more relaxed and therefore let's shy about using a language that you are not fluent at. It works for me and many of my friends sa well to be honest. Second thing: watching TV. Especially as you really pick some cool series, just watch in its language - at first with English subs, but try to focus on the pronunciation.
Later on you turn off the subtitles and see how much do you really understand. If at least 3/4 then you are pretty much ready and rest is just polishing :)