The qualitative study presented in this thesis investigated the activity of ab initio Irish language learners participating in a real world Blended Learning (BL) course Introduction to Irish which took place in Carnegie Mellon University, 2016. The course’s design included a mixture of ‘off the shelf’ online language learning technologies and traditional language learning resources. Taking the BL course’s weekly sub-activity systems as the unit of analysis, this thesis addresses the research question of ‘What contradictions emerge in a BL course for ab initio language learners?’. The research question was pursued by adapting a Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) based methodological approach and research instruments developed by Prof. Françoise Blin in her 2005 study on the development of learner autonomy within a hybrid French language course at Dublin City University. In this study, Blin’s CHAT-based approach was used to identify contradictions within the activity system of the blended course. Effective elements within the course’s design and their relationships to one another were also identified. The study’s findings suggest that CHAT provides a sound conceptual framework to record and analyse learners’ activity within newly designed BL courses. Practically, the study illustrates how Blin’s CHAT-based coding scheme can be adapted to identify contradictions in ab initio BL courses. The study also illustrates how CHAT can be used to inform ab initio BL course design. Importantly for researchers studying BL environments, the findings suggest that working from a CHAT perspective facilitates the documentation of face-to-face and online activity both historically and within the course’s larger social context. Importantly for language instructors, the main findings of the study suggest that the; 1. Language teacher played an important role in facilitating communication among the ab initio language learners in the target language, particularly within the face-to face-classroom. 2. Authentic artefacts produced by the teacher were perceived by the students as valuable language learning resources for improving their aural and oral competencies. 3. The ab initio learners were capable of combining multiple tools and artefacts included in the course’s blend to pursue their individual learning goals. 4. The ab learners preferred to engage with artefacts and tools provided to them at this early stage in their language learning, rather than create artefacts to pursue their own learning objects.