TELEGRAM AS A DECENTRALIZED PROFESSIONAL LEARNING ECOSYSTEM FOR EFL TEACHERS: EVIDENCE FROM UZBEKISTAN

Mobile instant messaging platforms have quietly reshaped how teachers learn from one another. In resource-constrained settings, where institutional professional development is slow, costly, and unevenly distributed, educators have built their own peer networks using tools originally designed for personal communication. This paper examines how Telegram, in particular, has evolved into a functioning professional learning ecosystem for EFL and ESL teachers in Uzbekistan — a country where the platform is not merely popular but is structurally embedded in everyday communication through carrier-subsidized data access and a channel ecosystem that numbers over 160,000 registered accounts.