Concur that for most people (not all) starting straight with EDH was not the "best" option.
I've taught a few dozen people to play MtG over the last few decades; most recently I taught about 5 co-workers a couple years ago. Everybody is different (teachers and learners) but here are the basics of what I usually do.
- Make sure you are evaluating the person's learning style at each step of the process. Prepare to adapt your teaching/coaching style at any given step (Explanation, example, guided action, etc.)
-- Also make sure the person you are teaching realizes that they are not expected to memorize anything the first time you discuss a topic or item. You bring things up often and repeatedly, so that later (after training game 4-6) they have seen it all before at least more than once, have learned enough to ask the questions they need and can start grasping the details (rather than broad overviews).
- Actually start without playing at all. So many people miss/skip this, but I have found it makes a great difference (especially in the first 2-3 weeks)
-- Spend some time going over the anatomy of a magic card. Make sure you have at least one example of each card type set aside. Whill going over the cards (Casting cost, type line, text-box, etc.) you can also cover what the types are and their primary differences (differences are much more important than similarities at this point).
-- Spend some time discussing turn order (WotC includes those nifty fold-outs to help teach this), characteristics of the phases and steps, as well as timing rules. Again, rough overview, this is a first look - not an attempt to memorize the CR.
- Goldfish a game with them watching.
-- Talk through what you are doing, why and how. Have them follow the turn order reference and any other references you may make to help them along (e.g. I print out evergreen keywords and their reminder text on a half-sheet of paper for when we start playing)
-- Follow that by having them goldfish the same deck with you watching and coaching
- Build some basic 60 card training decks, following the "9" rule, I generally make 2 each mono, dual and tri colored
-!- Don't talk about deck building at this time, but after a week or two of playing you can dissect these decks one-at-a-time to talk about deck building basics and show them how to upgrade/change a deck
-- Play the first 3-5 games with hands on the table (as if a global
Telepahy were in play) and take it slow. Do not play down, but make sure you are discussing threat assessment and board state as you go (e.g. I'm going to
Disenchant <this> - Explain why you chose the target and why this is the time to do so).
-- Play your first "normal" game on the same session you play your last "hands revealed" game. It can be detrimental to spit this between sessions
- Just play some normal games. Maybe get some dual decks and try to showcase different strategies and concepts
-- During these games is a good time to talk about the differences between agro, control, etc.
-- Give them time to find out what they do and do not enjoy playing and playing against
- Start teaching deck building
-- Now is a good time to first discuss variants like Commander, Tribal, etc. But don't try teaching the variant deck building yet - just make them aware that there are "other ways to play."
- Once they are comfortable playing and have learned to tweak a deck, you can have them let you know when they want to learn Commander or another variant. Build (or precon) the first couple decks for whatever format they want to learn and let them tell you when they are comfortable.
Depending on the person I was teaching, this whole process usually took about 6-10 "sessions," at which time I usually gave them about 1000 cards (I used the Holiday boxes and just filled it about 2/3ds full) and two-three of the decks I used for teaching and helped them build a deck or two out of their new collection.
Of course, YMMV. Hope that helps though.