At an intermediary level I would watch a movie or TV show or read a bit of a book or article for not more than 1 hour and spend 10-15 minutes looking up vocabulary and or grammar necessary to provide a paragraph-like conversation starter with the following structure: opening sentence (introduce the topic, the context, how you found it), 3 sentences to summarize (beginning, middle, end if a narrative; thesis, support, counter-argument if a non-narrative), and a final sentence with your own reaction or a question you want to start your discussion with. The rest of the time (1hr 45min) I would spend speaking with someone else--the don't have to have read or seen the same thing, but I think it would help if they had--starting with your piece and expanding as much as possible deeper into the original topic (if that's reasonable) or into related topics. I hope that helps!