This study explores one novice learner's development of interactional competence in English as a foreign language based on data collected over a 4-year period at an after-school English program in Japan. Using conversation analysis (CA), the study focuses on how the learner develops methods to participate in the multiparty classroom interaction in order to achieve and co-construct a specific recurrent communicative activity led by the teacher. The participants in this study are an experienced English instructor and 9 students who attend the class once a week. Naturally occurring classroom interactions were analyzed focusing on how the novice learner engaged in the recurrent communicative event. By comparing data from four different time periods, the analyses reveal changes in how the learner engaged in the recurrent interactional routines and how the learner's competencies evolved. The utilization of appropriate language choice, turn-taking strategies, and taking on different social roles and patterns of participation, demonstrated his increasing L2 interactional competence. These findings echo the results of previous studies that show how learners diversify methods to accomplish particular interactional activity as they advance their L2 competence. The study contributes to the literature on interactional routines as a resource in classroom interaction and their effect on the development of L2 interactional competence.