>But I think the audio-aural method is indeed the best way to be introduced to the spoken language - it is how I learned English <g>

That's historically the best proven method to learn Latin or ancient Greek - thousands of their kids used it with great success.

>You listen, you repeat what you think you are hearing and eventually you begin to understand and people begin to understand you.

It works for me only in the first few sessions, during the tongue breaking, when even I don't really care whether what I say makes any sense. You only need to get the sound right - both in recognition and reproduction. However, as soon as it gets to production, I like to know what I'm saying :).

>When I speak French or Spanish I still subconsciously think the French or Spanish word "means" some English word. But in Turkish or Thai or whatever the word is the thing it represents. ( which is good because the word order and grammar - especially in Turkish - is so different from English you pretty much have to think in the language to speak it. )

That's my experience while learning Hungarian (at the age of 40 :). That's a Forth among languages.

>For me, spoken fluency has a lot to do with first exposure. As to getting up to speed quickly on a spoken language there is no doubt it is the most effective way to teach it.

The immersion method does miracles. After only two months of immersion I started communicating; after five, I started translating jokes. Though, the stories about my joketelling were usually funnier than the jokes themselves :).