I have taught a few folks [including my sisters] to fly with a 6 foot span glider. They are the easiest to build, repair and in my opinion easiest to fly. From there, the next step would be to move into your typical industrial grade 6 pound, .40 powered trainer.
Alternatives to that would be any lightweight plane with a reputation to be easy to fly, like early FF designs converted to RC.
A 3.5 pound, .40 powered 3D profile plane with the controls set to "beginner" will fly circles around any typical 4 channel trainer, be easier to land and more importantly more fun as you gain experience with it. Something to think about, you would end up with a 2nd "trainer" that you could spend the rest of your RC career learning what it can do. I wish I had gone this route instead of spending all those years just spinning my wheels with "Ugly Stick" type sport models