That's... "first two weeks"-level of language lessons, right? No reason not to progress to children's stories and newspaper articles in time.
We basically never did speaking with a partner, I think our teachers realized that most students will learn little from that. It was always student teacher interactions, but in a way that required everybody to pay attention/participate. The teacher would ask a question, waited a few seconds so everybody could begin forming a response, and then pick a student to answer.
Not listening and mentally preparing an answer risked getting picked, failing, and getting admonished/ridiculed - and the teachers were (naturally) pretty good at calling on students who had drifted off. If you were paying attention, you also constantly compared your prepared response with what other students were answering, which made you think about correct grammar, ect.
I think if you have the resources to do 5 hours of language lessons a week, this is the best way. If you're learning independently, your way is probably more effective in terms of time and money. I've saved your other comment, I really should get back into Spanish...