This study was aimed at investigating the students’ English reading comprehension on the basis of the importance of prosodic reading in university level by first, measuring the levels of reading prosody and reading comprehension, characterizing the acoustic characteristics produced by the students, and at last associating the first variable to the second variable. Prosodic reading levels were measured by using Multidimensional Fluency Scale, containing four dimensions. To explore the six types of syntactically complex structures produced by the students orally, this study conducted a descriptive analysis, only focused on some features. The findings showed that the students experienced moderate level of reading prosody and reading comprehension. Also, it could be reported that a significant correlation was found between the two variables. The study reported that prosodic reading contributed to reading comprehension with r-obtained .538. A thorough analysis explained that some other related predictors influenced students’ comprehension, like difficulties in recognizing the vocabulary, lack of knowledge to review the four types of sentences, and the length of the passage. Among four dimensions, only pace and expression & volume did contribute to reading comprehension much. Different pause structures produced by the students and the native speakers were clearly identified. This was shown as many students had a long pause and sound hesitate due to their inability to decode the words. Moreover, most of them could not comprehend the sentence structure of the text, when to pause, which words were needed to be stressed, and the intonation used. As a result, they read in a two-three phrases and declined to notice where the endings of sentences and clauses were definitely stated. These results confirmed that pause structure commits as a pivotal factor in determining students’ reading comprehension.

Reading literacy has become global concern that Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has conducted Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) reading literacy test to assess what students know and can do in reading. Participating in PISA test since 2000, Indonesian students’ reading literacy has not shown a significant improvement. Because PISA reading literacy test is adapted into language of instruction of each participating country, it is Indonesian students’ reading literacy in Indonesian language which is not satisfactory. Considering the fact that Indonesian fifteen-year-old students study English as a compulsory subject, investigating students’ reading literacy in English is considered important. There has been much research investigating issues in reading achievement in Indonesia, but there are limited studies focussing on PISA reading literacy based on school location, school accreditation, gender, and academic major. Employing survey study design, this study assessed reading literacy of two thousand and two hundred secondary school students sampled from twenty four public secondary schools accredited A+, A, and B in Palembang. Data were obtained using PISA reading literacy test 2009 and were analysed statistically. The findings revealed that students’ English literacy was in level 3 (low category). Students studied at schools in central urban district performed better than those of in peri urban district. Those from secondary schools accredited A+ outperformed their counterparts in schools accredited A and B. Female students performed slightly better than male. Students majoring in science were better than those of majoring in social. The results lead to the conclusion that students’ English literacy achievement should be enhanced using innovating strategies to achieve targeted literacy level that is needed to survive in school academic life.

Multimodality which encourages the combination of text, image, sound, and videos could be varied from class to class. Multimodal literacy as a new dimension of literacy in the 21st century has emerged as a critical skill that EFL students must develop, given its role as a source of meaning in communication. The purpose of this study was to identify the level of students’ multimodal literacy and to identify lecturers’ standpoints on students’ multimodal literacy. This study was conducted both quantitatively and qualitatively and involved 71 EFL students who took creative writing subject in an English education program in one state university in South Sumatera. The data were collected by distributing a questionnaire from Bulut et al. (2015) and by interviewing 3 lecturers who taught the subject. Descriptive statistics and one-way ANOVA were used to determine mean, standard deviation and differences in terms of gender and classes with different lecturer; qualitative data were thematically analyzed to categorize the themes. The results indicated that students’ multimodal literacy level was categorized high as indicated by the mean of each aspect of questionnaire: 4.22, 4.11 and 3.6 respectively. There was no different level of multimodal literacy between male and female students, and different lecturers with different instructions did not influence the level.. Finally, the lecturers perceived positively to students’ multimodal literacy . Similarly, referring to the lecturers’ view, the students gave positive attitude towards multimodal writing and hence making their multimodal digital fiction successful. Keywords: Multimodal Literacy, Digital Fiction, Creative Writing, EFL