Jessica Beinecke

Jessica Beinecke has harnessed the power of social media to teach English — and Chinese — to countless eager language learners. The bubbly American’s wildly popular English education videos have made her a Chinese Internet sensation, with nearly 400,000 followers on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like platform, not to mention the screaming crowds who greet her like a rock star at Chinese fan parties. Beinecke’s Chinese-learning videos and new blog, “Crazy Fresh Chinese,” are also catching on among young Chinese-language students in the United States, where Mandarin learning is taking off in American high schools and even elementary schools.