Grove support

Answers

Do I need an account?

No. Grove has no accounts and no sign-in, and asks for no name or email address. Because there are no accounts, the work on a device belongs to whoever used it last: on a device shared by a class or a family, delete each learner’s work before the next one starts (see erasing).

Does Grove work offline?

Yes. The course, its practice questions and timed tests, the stories, the dictionary and the grammar are all inside the app, and words are spoken with the voices on your device. Grove goes online only when:

• you share a web link to it and Grove needs to fetch that one page (always for a link from an app other than Safari);
• you have turned on iCloud sync; or
• on a device that cannot recognise speech by itself, someone has said yes to Apple’s speech service.

Grove for Android and Windows goes online only when you press Settings ▸ This version ▸ Check for updates, or, on an Android device that cannot recognise speech by itself, after someone has said yes to the device’s online speech service; and when you share a web link to it, it opens that one page to pick the article out.

If a voice for your accent is missing, add one in your device’s accessibility settings (Spoken Content, then Voices).

How do I turn sync on or off?

Open Settings with the gear button (on a Mac, Grove ▸ Settings… or ⌘,). Under Across your devices, switch Keep my devices in step on or off. Do the same on each device. Sync is off until you turn it on, and it needs the device to be signed in to iCloud.

It carries where you stopped in each book, the words you kept, your highlights and notes, and your progress in the course, through your own iCloud account. Books, drafts, recordings and settings are not synced. Turning it off stops syncing but does not empty what is already in iCloud; Remove Grove’s copy from iCloud…, in the same place, takes it out. The privacy policy explains more. Grove for Android and Windows has no sync: each device keeps its own work.

How do I erase a learner’s data?

• Settings ▸ Privacy ▸ Delete this learner’s work… deletes progress, review cards, timed-test results, drafts, plans, kept answers, recordings, reading speeds and the look-up history from this device, resets the learner’s own settings, and clears the course progress kept in iCloud. It cannot be undone. Do it on the learner’s other devices too.
• Settings ▸ Speech and recordings ▸ Delete all recordings… deletes only the recordings.
• Books, kept words and notes are removed where they are listed: Remove from this list in Read (which also deletes a saved web page), Remove from Words I Met, and Notes & Highlights.
• Deleting the app on iPhone or iPad deletes everything Grove keeps on that device.

Why does Grove ask for the microphone?

Only when a learner chooses to speak: to read a passage aloud, to say a word, or to answer a speaking task. Grove shows what it heard; it never scores a learner by it. Speech is turned into words on the device wherever the device can do that. Where it cannot, Grove asks once whether it may use Apple’s speech service, and sends nothing until someone says yes. Where a child is learning, a grown-up should answer; the answer can be changed in Settings ▸ Speech and recordings.

A speaking task’s answer is recorded so the learner can play it back, and the recording is kept on the device only if the learner keeps the answer. You can turn the microphone and speech recognition off for Grove in your device’s privacy settings (Settings ▸ Privacy & Security on iPhone and iPad, System Settings ▸ Privacy & Security on a Mac); every speaking task can then be done aloud without recording.

Can a child use Grove?

Yes. Grove is made for school pupils as well as adults, and it is the same for every learner: it does not ask who is learning, and every stage is open to all. The dictionary hides offensive and explicit words while Settings ▸ Look up ▸ Hide rude and offensive words is on, as it is until someone turns it off. Web links in imported books open in the browser, so choose with a child what to read, and sit with a young child. Where a device cannot recognise speech by itself, a grown-up should answer Grove’s question about Apple’s speech service. Settings ▸ Privacy ▸ Privacy: what Grove keeps explains the rest for parents and teachers.

How do I read an article from Safari?

On the page, choose Share ▸ Grove. Grove picks the article out of the page and opens it the next time you come back to Grove (on a Mac, straight away). On a Mac, switch the extension on once first: System Settings ▸ General ▸ Login Items & Extensions, then Grove’s Sharing entry.

On Android, choose Share ▸ Grove in your browser. The browser passes Grove only the page’s link, so Grove opens that one page, out of sight, and picks the article out (only a secure, https, page). Or select the article’s text and share that: then nothing is fetched.

Which devices does Grove run on?

iPhone, iPad and Mac. It is the same app on all three. The App Store page shows the system version each one needs.

Grove for Android phones and tablets (Android 7 or newer) and for Windows PCs (Windows 10 or 11) is downloaded from this website. It has the same course, dictionary and books.

What are the practice questions and timed tests?

From Stage 3, each stage has a Practice questions part on its page: 4,211 questions across Stages 3 to 6, in the forms many tests of English use, at that stage’s level. They come in groups (reading passages, grammar and correct sentences, filling gaps, words and idioms, sentences and paragraphs, reading and reasoning, listening, writing and speaking), and a stage shows the groups it has. Each kind of question has a way of working, a worked example, the units that teach it, and practice. Writing and speaking tasks come with feedback by rule, a marking guide, samples and a model answer.

Each of those stages also has Timed tests, 52 in all: fixed sets of questions against the clock, and from Stage 4 timed writing. No question of a timed test is ever in the practice. Marking is plain: one mark a question, and nothing taken off for a wrong answer or a blank.