For a basic setup to learn hello world and basic if/then logic, it's extremely simple to setup Python on Windows or Linux. For Windows, which I'm guessing every non technical viewer will be using, download the installer and hit next taking the default values. Open idle, type the very human readable, print("hello world"). Save and press f5. That's it no complicated setup.

OP isn't talking about teaching a lesson where any confusing syntax will come into play. They are giving an intro to programming class. That's all about learning basic programming concepts which is done very easily in Python. You wouldn't teach a non technical first time programmer a ternary operator or a list comprehension. You'd teach them:

if a == 10: 
    print("a = 10")
else: 
    print("a is not 10")

and simple for loops

for x in range(10):
    print(x)

I don't know about you, but to me that's about as human readable as it gets. No imports required. No extra packages. Just default python install and copy paste and this will work.

There are other languages with minimal setup that can be used. OP could go as far as basic JavaScript in JS fiddle so no setup would be required. The basics of JavaScript are also very easy to read compared to a language like C where explicit typing is required. That can be a difficult concept for people that have never even seen code before. Python and JavaScript soften that blow. Once the concepts of if/then, loops, and functions are grasped it's much easier to pivot to other languages with more verbose syntax.

I'm not here suggesting that Python is by any means the superior language of the universe, just that it's a very good option to learn with for it's entry level simplicity and syntax readability, which I've demonstrated.