Let's assume that you are playing at the chieftan level withthe "advice" on. You have a city, so you know that Settlers can do things like build cities. Your city makes 'things' -- a barracks (or possibly temples or other buildings depending upon your research.), or units such as a warrior or another Settler.
At the start, I'd recommend having you settler build a city wihin a turn or two (preferably on grass, on a river & grass would be especially nice, having the funny "special icons" -- like whales, wine or wheat -- within a space or two would also be especially nice,
With your city, build a warrior or two -- one to go out & search, and have the second stay home ("fortifY") for the civle defense -- just in case. Then when the second warrior is flashing in your city (it is built) douoble click on the city to open up the scene to let you look inside & see what to do -- select a settler (instead of a third warrior). After anumber of turns, it will be flashing -- move him out about three spaces & order it to build a city.
Repeat a few times until you have about four to six cities -- then create a few settlers to build roads to connect your cities together.
Also by this time you should have research going on that lets you build improved units or interesting structures (like temples, markets, libraries, and maybe even a Wonder.)
In fact you might want to improve your searchers with horsemen or diplomats to see what the rest of the world looks like.
(Lesson 2 to be added after the 'homework is completed'.)