In this paper we report on the first year of a two year action-research project in the Netherlands. Fourteen teachers of mother-tongue education worked together to design concept-context-enriched education. Three teachers of higher vocational education with knowledge of action research facilitated the project and an academic researcher from the university (first author of this paper) researched the implementation of this action-research project as the teachers were experiencing it. This paper reports on the knowledge the teachers developed, the materials they produced, and the mother-tongue (or L1 concepts and contexts) they applied during the first ten months of the project. With this paper we wish to contribute to the knowledge on how in-service action-research projects develop and elaborate on what lessons may be learned from the first year of an action-research project in which teachers design concept-context enriched education.