Start first with simple lists like to-do and grocery lists. Lists are perfect for beginning students because there are no sentence structures to perfect. You simply need to look up the word in the language dictionary and jot it down next to the English equivalent. Each new list means new words, but also repeats from prior weeks. Soon enough you'll begin to remember the foreign equivalent without the aid of a dictionary.
Intermediate students can graduate to more complicated thought formations.
If you are a journal writer, take one paragraph to express your thoughts in your new language. If your entries are not too personal, you can even ask your language teacher to critique your paragraph to perfect your skills. A good source of basic sentence structures can be found in children's books whose simple themes and bright pictures are quite useful. More advance students can move on to newspapers and magazines in the language of study. Always read with a dictionary at hand and put the English word in the margins for easy reference.