Thinking Dialogically

This study investigates how first-year nonnative students negotiate an unfamiliar cliscursive practice. online academic talk in an Englishdominant content class. This study adopts practice theory for understanding the dynamics of participation of a specific practice, synchronou chat cliscussion. Online chat acted as a mediating tool with which the students could exercise agency in their learning process, and, accordingly, L2 novice students could gain more voice over courserelated discourse than face-to-face discussions allowed. Through a qualitative multiple case study approach to classroom practices, synchronous chat activity in this case, thi research responds to the increasing interest in a view of second language learning as co-constructed development of intcractional competence in situated discursive practices.