It's true that children that young aren't even necessarily fluent in their own language yet and you need to find activities that they will like doing and just do these activities with them with the hopes that they will pick up the language along the way (especially with 3 and 4 year olds who are very interested in their independance at this age).
I'm also responding to this post because I specialise in games that teach English to children. Games can be very successful, if you can find the right ones. When you are playing games with just one student, there are a number of things that you can do to keep them fun, interesting and competitive, such give a limited time for the task using a stopwatch or timer. The student must complete the task before the timer goes off so you add excitement by having a race against the clock. You can also time your student and then see if they can beat their time in the next round.
You can also play too and again there are things you can do to make it a genuine game, rather than one where you either win all the time or pretend to be slow. For example you can give your pupil a head start or make your task harder.
for the 3 and 4 year old you would not want to have a competitive element and you also need to make sure that the children absolutely never lose or they will cry and then sulk. With my niece I recently taught her some english words and she is only just 4.
I laid picture cards out on the grass and she had to jump on the picture I called out, then we did a few other games where she was listening and responding. Another one was where I spread the pictures around while she looked the other way - putting one behind a tree and the other over by the pond, then I called out one of the words and counted to five, she had to run and find the right picture and bring it back - of course I NEVER reached 5 before she returned with the picture - that would have been a disaster.
Then we carried on with speaking games. We played for 40 minutes solid like that and she loved it and can still remember the words today.
On this page, find out
how to teach a child to speak English.
I wish you all the best with your one to one teaching. It's highly rewarding and a valuable skill because you can use the same games and techniques to teach your own children or family members a second language.
Kind regards,
Shelley Ann Vernon