Universities worldwide are looking to promote global awareness and international understanding in order to create future citizenry that can find solutions to the world’s most urgent challenges. For students to be a part of these solutions, they must be able to participate in global conversations, so English language education is essential. Furthermore, students must have global awareness, so progressive curriculum that can challenge student beliefs, values, and norms is crucial if our students are to engage with these urgent global challenges. Content-based learning through global awareness is an emerging field in language teaching that looks to raise awareness of world issues through Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). Two major global challenges that are often overlooked in higher education language contexts are environmental degradation and the pervasiveness of unhealthy lifestyles. This paper will examine how to develop CLIL courses in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts in Japan. Specifically, the paper will explore two content-based language courses taught in Japanese higher education: one course focused on environmental ethics and the other course focused on healthy lifestyles. The paper has two main goals: (1) How can global challenges be successfully integrated into university EFL courses? and (2) How can these courses be made to benefit students’ awareness of global Issues and student language ability? The paper will explore these goals by offering lessons learned from the perspective of curriculum development, assessment best practice, and student outcomes. The paper will be applicable to EFL teachers in higher education contexts that are interested in integrating global issues topics in their language classes with the purpose of raising their students’ global awareness as well as increasing their students’ English language abilities.