Teaching practices in forensic linguistics and forensic phonetics

The aim of this study is to provide an overview of the views and ideas that current teachers of forensic linguistics and forensic phonetics (FL-FP) have around their pedagogical practice. The study focuses on teaching practices in FL-FP within higher education institutions and explores how FL-FP teachers navigate potentially challenging issues in their work. A survey elicited opinions around FL-FP teaching from 30 teaching practitioners, focusing on areas including content warnings, mental health protection, the use of real forensic data in teaching, ethical issues, guidelines, and standards. The results indicate that the participants are generally in favor of the use of content warnings, that they believe students and staff should be provided with well-being support, that the FL-FP syllabus should refer to authentic cases, and that teaching materials should not be adapted to remove references to serious crimes. The findings could be viewed as a springboard for further discussion around how best to teach FL-FP topics to students in universities.