OSAN AIR BASE, South Korea — When airmen who volunteered to teach English at a local South Korean school showed up Thursday for their first visit of the year, they found themselves welcomed like rock stars.

The Osan Air Base airmen visited the Dongsak Elementary School in Pyeongtaek under a thriving program the 51st Fighter Wing set up last year with local schools.

Each school gets two visits monthly from three airmen; each airman leads a two-hour English conversational class with 10 students.

"Today when they showed up at the school it was like rock stars were visiting," said Osan spokesman Tech. Sgt. Matthew Summers.

Dongsak is one of nine area schools that have formally committed to take part in the Adopt-A-School English Tutoring Program."

Thus far, 111 airmen have volunteered.

When it began last year, the program looked to individual airmen to volunteer, then sent them into participating schools.

But that had a drawback: if a volunteer neared the end of the standard one-year South Korea tour, or was unavailable, the wing depended on that volunteer to try to find a replacement.

So the wing directed its squadrons to adopt schools, and holds the squadrons responsible for keeping the relationship on track and volunteers continually available, Summers said.

The volunteers teach from textbooks furnished by the schools, which also provide a bilingual teacher to assist during the visits.

But sports, field trips and other activities are part of the program too.

Some airmen have said they like the program because they miss their own children back in the States.

For the students, their regular school English courses drill them in grammar and reading. But a chance to use casual English with native speakers is hard to come by, Summers said.

He said anyone wanting to volunteer should call the public affairs office at DSN 784-4044.

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