Metatalk for dialogic turn in the first years of schooling

The centrality of classroom talk for teaching and learning has been a substantial matter of inquiry for researchers across the globe for many decades. This chapter presents new understandings about the role and utility of metatalk in lessons. It focuses on empirical data gathered in early years classrooms since research reporting on metatalk in the foundation stages of school learning is a small field of inquiry. The chapter introduces some principal literature critical to the field of dialogic teaching and metatalk. Different theoretical and methodological traditions are drawn on to study school talk. The concept of metatalk draws attention to talk about talk-in-interactions or more simply talk about dialogue. Empirical material is drawn from a nationally funded Australian study researching dialogic pedagogies across the primary years of schooling. Talk about dialogue emerged as a central feature of the discursive flow of instructional talk in the lessons studied.