THE EFFECTS OF SUPRASEGMENTAL FEATURES ON INDONESIAN EFL LEARNERS' READING COMPREHENSION

This research investigates how reading instructional strategies that focus on suprasegmental phonological features impact the reading comprehension of Indonesian EFL students at the university level. This study is essential since it focuses on enhancing literacy abilities in EFL students by investigating how suprasegmental features might increase reading ability and comprehension levels. This study used a quasi-experimental approach due to a pre-established group structure. 56 English education majors were split into two groups: the suprasegmental feature strategy and the intensive reading strategy. The intervention consisted of a six-week teaching program delivered by instructors in the Advanced Reading: Critical Thinking course within the Department of English Education. Collecting data involves conducting pretest and posttest analyses with TOEFL reading comprehension questions. The mean difference between the two groups was 6.05 (MD = 6.05; t = 3.09; p = .003). It suggests that the experimental group outperformed the control group in reading comprehension. The findings indicate that teaching reading comprehension using suprasegmental reading strategies positively impacts students' reading comprehension skills. This research emphasizes integrating reading prosody strategies into reading comprehension education to enhance students' reading ability and text comprehension, leading to more effective and personalized learning results. This study provides essential recommendations for enhancing language instruction for EFL students.