This article looks at how undergraduate students develop cognitive competence when taught through Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) in university-level foreign language programs. The focus is on first-year bachelor students majoring in Foreign Language Teacher Training, and it tracks how their intellectual engagement, analytical skills, and critical thinking grow. The study zooms in on the "Cognition" part of the 4C model (Content, Communication, Cognition, Culture) and examines how a dual-focused learning environment pushes students from Lower-Order Thinking Skills (LOTS) to Higher-Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) in line with Bloom's revised taxonomy. The experimental results and qualitative analysis show that combining subject content with foreign language learning clearly boosts conceptual processing, authentic language use, and metacognitive strategies in a university setting. The article also goes into the teaching side of things, using cognitive load theory and linguistic scaffolding to outline a model that universities can actually apply in professional training programs. Data was collected using qualitative methods, mainly student questionnaires given after several CLIL-based lessons.