Moving away from script to "real" speech

How can you help students move from writing French scripts to doing true French oral production?

It is so easy for students to use an on-line translation site to assist them in creating their "speech" but certainly detrimental to their development in so many ways!  As the difficulty level increases while learning a second language so does the difficulty for students to create conversations without the use of "written aids".  When you ask a question students seem to immediately want to pick up a pen and write an answer down!!  Crazy but true! It's a comfort mechanism for them which if not curtailed can hinder their speech development.  HOWEVER, I believe that there's nothing wrong with students being able to jot down ideas or words to help them out. 

My beginner's class will soon be putting together a presentation to tell me about their likes and dislikes in terms of food, beverages, leisure activities, and school subjects along with information about themselves, their families, and pets. We have been working with -er verbs, one and two verb sentences, avoir expressions, partitive articles, idiomatic expressions and preferences.  This is an awful lot for them to remember and use!  We have been practising for two months now and soon they will show me what they have learned.  I know that this will be very scarey for some of them, but I also know that they will be able to manage their presentations with a little help.  So, today, I showed them exactly how to do this.

Using PowerPoint or Word or a cut and paste picture they will make a "slide" or "mini-poster" with a picture on it with a couple of words included.  They are "prompts" to help them put together a sentence or sentences of their choice.
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mon chien - 14 ans - le ballon
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Students can create many sentences from the above bits of information:

Voici mon chien, Bear.
Il s'appelle Bear.
J'ai un chien.
Il a 14 ans.
Il est brun et blanc.
Il aime jouer avec mon ballon.
Il aime jouer.
Il dort.
Il préfère dormir. Il n'aime pas jouer avec le ballon.
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With a little bit of persistence and much modelling and scaffolding your students will be amazed at how much they can actually say!!!  :)  Have fun with this!  After all, everyone wants to be able to speak their new language!