To do this,
You should if statements or switch statement

You should take the first number of input  and insert it to switch
statement,
then you should the second number of the input and insert it into switch
statement.

I'm unsure as to how to do this. Obviously, I'm looking at this
problem from the wrong angle. Switch statements have only
been covered very briefly...we've not even reached while and for
yet! I suspect maybe I'm attempting to answer the question in a
too sophisticated manner, in that I'm looking for the java  program
to do the work for me in converting numeric inputs into a textual
output.

something like this maybe..........

System.out.println("Pleaser enter two numbers");
int num = 0;
char ch = System.in.read();
char ch2 = System.in.read();
if(ch>='0' && ch<='9' && ch2>='0' && ch2<='9')
num = (ch-'0') * 10 + ch2 - '0';
else System.out.println("I said a number you fool");

Except if you are learning programming for the first time, put {}
brackets around your if block and again around your else block.

You don't need to, but it is a pain in the bum trying to find these kind
of errors in code.

Are you working on console or GUI?

Java won't help you (directly) to create text  from a number. You need to do a
couple of things ...

First is to separate your number into its tens and units portions. Tens is
easy, simply divide by 10 and take the int result. Units requires the modulo
division operator - which is the percent sign.

int units = myNumber % 10;

Now you need to look up the words you want. There are (at least) three ways to
do this:

You can look it up using a switch statement
You can look it up using nested "if ... else if ... else ..."
You can have the words in a couple of arrays and look them up by indexing the
arrays.

Use the one that is closest to what you're doing in class.

You will presumably want to get the output  approximately right (e.g. no word for
zero units unless tens are also zero; no word for zero tens at all; 11 to 19
converted correctly). The zero tens can be done by converting it to an empty
string, the others will need their own "if" statements (with a separate switch,
if nest or array for the teens).

Hope this is enough information to get your research started. Once you've had a
good go, if you are still having problems, post the code and we'll be glad to
provide pointers.