First Chinese Lesson

I started my Chinese lessons yesterday.  Wow!  I know I'm just starting out but it is already very frustrating. We worked on pinyins (never even heard of those until yesterday), pronunciation, and Chinese tones for 2 hours. She put a sheet in front of me yesterday and told me to read through the alphabet.  How am I supposed to read the alphabet in Chinese if I've never heard it before?  Then at the end of the lesson, she told me to memorize the pronunciation and combination of sounds. We obviously have completely different teaching methodologies.  She is giving me a test today by saying words and then I have to identify which of the tones she is using. What the heck! I need to find some online pronunciation help... 

The Chinese use only one syllable "da" and yet can tell the difference between "to hang over something" ( da1 ), "to answer" (da2), "to hit" (da3), and "big" (da4). Yes, the secret lies in the tones.