Since we moved here, I have always heard that the kids learned high German at school and that teachers were to talk to them in high German from the 1st class on... Today, my daughter (4th class) came home with a piece of homework in written dialect... is this normal curriculum??? Dialect by definition shouldn't even be written...
I am hoping this isn't customary, otherwise no wonder so many Swiss are reluctant to speaking high German: the school system doesn't give them a chance to effectively learn the language -1st to 3rd class is all they get??
Would greatly appreciate your input on this.

this sounds strange, as you say, teachers are increasingly required to speak "standardsprache". my son is in 5th grade and first teacher spoke consequently swiss german. now he has a younger one who thankfully speaks high german.

although he really had difficulties with the first one he never came home with anything written in swiss german.
what's the homework about, is it a fairytale or about some tradition or local custom which might make more sense to be learnt in swiss german? in this case I find it acceptable, but not if it's about some general topic.

Here it is...

I wouldn't say this homework is in Swiss German, it seems to be a homework about Swiss German and how it relates to high German. Not the same thing.

Probably quite a useful exercise for kids l would have thought.

I actually think that's kinda cool... she's learning how to speak Swiss German... It's match up the German with the Swiss, new level of integration, and i don't disagree with that, as much as i don't like the language, it's theirs and we're in they're country...

I wouldn't mind my kids learning Swiss German as long as German or English is still their mains... the more languages the better!!

This indeed looks like a worksheet to teach children the standard German words for dialect words- which is perfectly OK, surely.

oh, I see
I wouldn't worry about that, it's actually very useful if your child learns to "connect" the spoken word to high german.
at the beginning my son spent weeks on a highly detailed map of the kanton zurich territory, learning the name of every single village, path, torrent and pond and even how high each hill or mountain was... hard work but a useful "full immersion"!

and your daughter seems to have done already a good job (although don't take my word for it)

Agree it looks rather good ... I could do with this!

My son (also in 4th class) does occasionally have Swiss German homework but as Venice says, it is when it relates to Swiss stories or songs .. the last time he had homework in SwissGerman was their end of year Christmas play - which was all in Swiss German - and homework over a couple of weeks was learning all the words/songs etc. As he had quite a big role, this was rather useful for my Swiss German (having to read out all the other parts .. )

Teachers are indeed required to teach high German and talk it too (or something that comes as close to high German as they can manage). However, we are in Switzerland and it can happen that kids are required to learn a Swiss German song or poem or work on a paper like the one your kid just got.

you should post your daughter's homework more often, since it is 100 times more helpful than most of the "Swiss German" language tools available.

ha ha, so true... sometimes I can't distinguish when the teacher is speaking swiss german or german to me. but I know she is trying hard to be helpful so I pretend I understand anyway

It's a paperwork from "Die Sprachstarken" which is the official text book for German in many Cantons. In that unit, children learn how to play with the language. It is also helpful for Swiss children to learn the correct High German word, as it covers many German words, that Swiss kids often confuse or forget. But obviously it helps the foreign community to learn some Swiss German - looks like a win/win situation

Some interesting point of view someone shared with me yesterday... teachers get so much Swiss German mixed up with high German in the papers the kids produce, that this might actually be a way to bring this to their attention and make them more aware of the differences between the two.