The instructor can't see a plane the student imagines, and the student can't see a plane the instructor imagines. Yeah, you can tell a student how to move the sticks for certain maneuvers, but so what... unless he sees what happens to the plane when he moves the sticks, he'll never get the hand-eye coordination down.

Just buy a sim and sit down with the student for an hour or two and teach him to fly the simulated plane... even the crappy, free sims would be better than "imagining" you're flying, IMO...