If you are looking for a job, you might wish to register with your local RAV Swiss job service, which might then be able to support your job-searching efforts with a German course. RAV offers intensive courses which meet 1/2 days, Monday-Friday and would pay the cost of them.
- As a legal resident of Switzerland, you do not have to be eligible for unemployment compensation to obtain RAV support for German language courses.
The RAV office responsible for your location should be Thalwil:
Then you will rapidly progress
The German Special is a clever idea in any event.
If you can make it to Lachen SZ then I really recommend Ueli Pauli who runs small groups from his home about 4 days a week and 3 times a day. He concentrates on getting you speaking and dealing with everyday things but also introduces the reading writing as you go. His approach is less formal than the schools but he can get you to B2 level if you want.
If you would like to know more I can PM you his details.
I have used ECAP in Zurich, S&W Training in Meersburg and Deutsch im Quartier in Basel - all very good. Migros in Basel was not so good, however.
However, like everything, it comes down to teachers and your budget.
AWA also sent me to an awful school near Dietlikon (near IKEA) and totally brain damaged old people in their 50s were the teachers. They had no patience nor empathy towards anyone learning a foreign language. Majority of them were from god-forsaken little cantons and spoke only German (so you could only interact/ask questions in German ). They also put undue stress on getting the "accent" right, disregarding most basic grammar. As they were only answerable to AWA (not RAV), they didn't give a rat's about your feedback nor their own quality of work. It was also more like an "integration" course, where they pr(t)each you the art of finding apartment, health insurance, how to recycle trash etc in "der Schweiz". In short, I hated every minute I spent there. I wouldn't advise AWA sponsored classroom course.
While above para is my sincere opinion, I'd also like to balance it out by saying that the "integration" course was in most cases BADLY needed. Just like the teachers, the students too didn't give rat's about learning / integrating / advancing. I just don't understand how people can live in der Schweiz for 10,15 years and seek an A1 (beginner) level German course. The A1 level is so basic that I could cruise through it in 2 weeks. Not bragging. If you can understand the advertisements on TV, newspapers, that's A1. The only other somewhat motivated chap in my class was a guy whose B permit was running out and he had to land ANY job somehow for its extension. That was his sole motive. Talk about EU-integration!
But yea there will definitely be good and bad teachers, schools and fellow students.
For example - at my workplace, English is the business language. German, French and Italian are extremely rare. Thus, the only exposure I have to German is on the rare occasion one of the people at lunch doesn't speak English (extremely rare).
On the other hand, one of my colleagues spent 3 months in a client office where they spoke German and rarely anything else. His german improved MUCH faster that mine is.
I used to host people in London a few years ago - they would come for a month-long "immersive" course. Stay in a "british" family, and have several hours of lessons every day from the company that organised it all... After a month, they were pretty much fluent.
M.