This chapter brings into focus the importance of metatalk and what this means for establishing dialogue in classroom lessons from the first years of schooling. Capitalising on the dialogic turn in school education, the interdependencies between metatalk and establishing a dialogic sensibility through the in-practice attention to talk and interaction by teachers and students in lessons are explored. Empirical examples are used to illustrate ways metatalk, as an intentional focus, creates conditions for young students to expand their interactional repertoires with clarity and support. In turn, it contributes to students developing social competencies in ways that give them a greater sense of their interactional conduct and their shared responsibility for understanding, managing and sharing the conversational floor in classroom dialogues.