Beginner plane would in my opinion definitely have:
1. High wing, wing mounted on the top of the fuselage
2. Be made of a light weight material, preferably foam due to its light wing loading and low cost
3. Have an electric motor for propulsion, as opposed to a nitro or gas which will be a distraction while you are learning.
4. Three channel aircraft are great because of their typical self-righting charactaristics. They do not have ailerons to control the roll axis, so they have to do that automatically.

One thing to remember, most rc aircraft are "scale" to some sense. They are scaled down from the full size, or "full scale" aircraft. When someone in the hobby starts talking about a scale aircraft, they are usually refering to a highly detailed aircraft that is designed and built to resemble the full scale aircraft in great detail. Take a P-51 Mustang for example. Most of them are some scale (i.e. 25% would be a quarter of the size of the full size airplane) of the original warplane. They look great, but typically have high wing loading which means they have to be flying pretty fast to generate enough lift on the wing to get the wheels off the ground. While they are some of the most beautiful works of art in the sky, they are NOT meant for beginners. I have seen too many of them hit the ground, and they require probably the most time to build...so its never a pretty sight. When someone says to stay away from the scale planes, as a general rule, stay away from any kind of war plane replica...P51, B52 etc. However, one good low wing trainer...probably a good second plane, is a T34...as an exception to the rule.

Of course, if you ask 10 people, you will get 10 very different opinions. You have to remember, there is no perfect science to this. Everyone has only their opinion and ideas to share. We can all tell you many different wrong ways of getting started, but there is no perfect way. First is to understand the basic principals of flight. What makes the airplane lift off of the ground, what makes it climb/descend, what makes it stall etc. Once you understand this and what controls roll/pitch/yaw axis, your on your way.

And as someone else here has written before, always remember...when inverted, down is up and up is expensive!

Hope some of this helps!

TonyG