South Africa went into lockdown on 27 March, 2020, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is unlikely that thousands of preservice teachers will be able to complete their teaching practicum during 2020 at schools. In this action research study, we investigated a two-week teaching practicum experience that was completed via WhatsApp by 12 students. During this time, the student teachers were supervised and monitored by university teaching practicum lecturers and mentored by school mentor teachers via WhatsApp. The results indicated that all participants perceived the teaching practicum experience via WhatsApp to have contributed to the formation of a community of practice that resulted in feedback and assessment being focused on a core teaching practice, namely explaining subject-specific content. Guidelines are provided for universities or teacher training providers who have work-integrated learning components to show how a teaching practicum experience via WhatsApp can be integrated into their training programs.