Bash command?

Question

I'm completely new to all this but I'm majoring in IT and want to learn. I'm really struggling with the bash she'll command to see what shell im in. It tells me to use ls -la /bin/sh. Problem is if I use "l" it says undefined and when I use "|" it says syntax error. I don't know what character I'm suppose to use since they look the same but both give errors.