Languages
Understand and join conversations with Swiss German speakers in everyday life and at work. Focus on listening, useful expressions and spoken interaction, with a regional dialect chosen around your contacts. A personalised pathway of around six months develops agreed communication skills; Standard German remains a separate focus for formal writing.
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YOUR NEXT LANGUAGE LEVEL
Practical goals for understanding and speaking Swiss German, informed by the CEFR.
An indicative OSAM pathway with agreed oral goals and an end-of-course assessment; no standardised official dialect examination.
YOUR PROGRAMME AT A GLANCE
For individuals & organisationsWe agree a start that fits your professional and personal commitments.
A structured step forward in Swiss German, with communication goals agreed at the initial assessment.
Synchronous teaching. Both formats include the OSAM platform for course materials and organisational information.
From an eduQua-certified institution.
An individual quotation confirms the programme, delivery format and applicable fees.
Learn with a native-speaking trainer who holds a relevant qualification and has teaching experience. Your trainer is matched to your profile and goals.
FROM KNOWLEDGE TO CAPABILITY
For newcomers and professionals with some German who want to understand colleagues, customers and everyday social exchanges more easily.
YOUR LEARNING JOURNEY
These modules form the core programme. Where useful, we refine the emphasis, examples and learning activities to reflect your professional context, starting point and objectives.
Assess your comprehension and speaking through practical situations, then agree a regional dialect focus and observable learning goals. CEFR descriptors can guide the assessment of communication skills, adapted to spoken dialect use. OSAM plans around six months for an agreed progression step; this is not a standardised official Swiss German level examination.
Explore Swiss German as a group of regional dialects. Compare short listening samples and learn to recognise familiar words with unfamiliar pronunciation. An agreed regional focus provides consistency. The goal is practical access to your own environment, rather than a claim to master every dialect used in Switzerland.
Build a repertoire of everyday expressions, question forms, negatives and spoken sentence patterns. Link listening with pronunciation practice and compare examples with Standard German. Collect words from recurring situations in your life. Regional variants are identified explicitly instead of presenting Swiss German as one uniform standard language.
Practise greetings, small talk, arrangements and short contributions at work. Learn to mention a misunderstanding and move between dialect and Standard German when useful. Role-plays help you follow the meaning even when some words are unfamiliar, then respond appropriately without needing to reproduce every feature of a local accent.
Work with short audio extracts and selected informal messages. Discuss when dialect is common and when Standard German is more suitable. Spellings in private messages can vary; examples are not presented as a compulsory orthography. Spoken understanding and participation remain the main priorities throughout this module.
Complete a connected task drawn from your daily activities and apply the language you have practised. Receive specific feedback on clarity, accuracy and independence. A personal practice plan supports learning between sessions. Review your progress against the agreed goals and identify useful next steps for maintaining and extending your skills.
THE PEOPLE BEHIND YOUR PROGRESS
Educational direction, subject expertise and adult learning support. Your final trainer assignment is confirmed in your proposal.
DIRECTOR’S PERSPECTIVE
Managing Director
Simon Pawolleck provides OSAM’s overall direction. The focus is on relevant skills, a clear learning structure and personal support that connects professional ambitions with practical progress.
EXPERT’S PERSPECTIVE
Programme Director · Languages
Samuel Dubois brings the programme’s subject expertise into focus. The educational approach connects a structured foundation with practical situations, relevant exercises and feedback aligned with your professional objectives.
ADULT LEARNING & ANDRAGOGY
Head of Adult Learning
Federal Diploma of Higher Education in Adult Education
Sandrine Mélé oversees the adult learning approach: coherent progression, active participation and learning methods that take account of prior experience. She supports a structured, practical and human approach to developing competence.
Active at a high professional level, selected against demanding criteria.
Developing the skills of their employees with OSAM.
An experience centred on the people who learn with us.
Personal career goals. Shared organisational priorities.
SERI / SEFRIeduQua-certified institution. Federal qualifications listed by SERI in selected pathways.
TRUST, BUILT THROUGH EXPERIENCE
From ambitious individuals to established organisations. Discover some of the companies that work with OSAM.
LEARNERS’ VOICES
OSAM Google review rating
As displayed on the OSAM website, 4 November 2026.View Google reviews“Patient teaching and very engaging lessons.”
“Excellent quality and personalised practical scenarios.”
GOOD TO KNOW
For newcomers and professionals with some German who want to understand colleagues, customers and everyday social exchanges more easily. The programme is available to private individuals and organisations, including company teams. OSAM welcomes learners living or working in Switzerland as well as international participants joining live online.
OSAM is an eduQua-certified continuing education institution. An OSAM certificate documents the learning agreed for your programme; eduQua is a quality label for the institution, not federal recognition of every individual course.
OSAM’s work connects individual professional development with the needs of companies in Switzerland and internationally. Client references and learner reviews below offer a practical view of that work.
You develop skills you can apply in real situations, with guidance from experienced practitioners and access to learning materials on the OSAM platform. The programme focuses on these outcomes:
Yes. We start with the established programme and refine the emphasis, practical cases and learning support where useful. Adjustments take account of the individual or company’s professional context, existing skills and goals. The agreed programme is confirmed before enrolment; federal examination requirements remain binding where applicable.
For the OSAM certificate, contact us to review your current level, prior experience and objectives. We will confirm the appropriate entry requirements and any recommended preparation.
Your Swiss German pathway is planned over approximately six months. The initial assessment defines a suitable progression step in understanding and speaking the dialect, with practical communication goals evaluated at the end. Swiss German learning goals are adapted to dialect use; this course does not promise a standardised official dialect examination.
A native-speaking, qualified and experienced trainer teaches you in person or by live video. Both formats always include access to the OSAM platform and course materials. Your timetable and practical exercises are adapted to your context.
The focus is dialect comprehension and spoken communication, with a regional emphasis agreed in advance. If you need Standard German for letters, examinations or official procedures, the German course is a useful complementary option.
The format can be agreed as live online, face-to-face or blended learning. Individual lessons and team training can also be discussed. Content, location and scheduling are confirmed in the quotation.
YOUR CAREER, IN PERSPECTIVE
Stronger language skills can enrich many roles. These are examples of professional settings where communication across languages makes a difference.
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Tell us where you want to go. Together, we will define the learning journey that gets you there.
info@osam-academy.com+41 31 528 01 28