Before I came to the U.S. in the mid 1990's I geeked out on two grocery bags' worth of VHS tapes of StarTrek Next Generation. Nothing like learning English from the forever affable Captain Picard or the eternally proper Data. I found it very helpful then.

The other piece of advice I have which I didn't see mentioned is to date a local, or several. They care about you and will help you learn. They'll also teach you idiomatic and colloquial language and correct you if you get it wrong.

Lastly: talk to young children ages four through eight or so. Unless they grow up multi-lingually, they don't have a concept of people speaking different languages and will just assume you'll understand and will be able to reply intelligently. They also don't have much experience with accents. For them it's more of a binary thing either they'll get you or they won't, they have no judgment nor enough experience to adapt to you. When learning French that was always my own personal test of how intelligible my speaking was in the foreign language.