This article examines one of the most fundamental, yet taken-for-granted, activities that goes in classrooms--the talk and interaction that happens between teachers and students in their lessons. Given what is at stake, how lesson talk and interaction is understood and practised matters to student learning, engagement, disciplinary cohesion and ultimately their development as literate beings. This, at its core, is the key motivation for moving towards a dialogic approach to pedagogy. The article first presents research detailing the nature of lesson talk and considers ways it carries displays of the interpretations of the tasks, the texts and the topics that implementing a school curriculum expects. Second, attention is given to how a repertoire of strategically, flexibly and deliberately practised dialogic talk moves promotes pedagogical openings for the recognition and development of student interactional, social, linguistic and disciplinary competencies. To conclude, the article argues for a dialogic sensibility to pedagogical talk, where dialogicality is promoted and demonstrated intersubjectively with increasing complexity across the years of schooling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]