The teaching practicum is an integral part of any pre-service teacher training programme. It is when trainee teachers move from university studies to actual school teaching practice under field supervision. However, the partnership between universities and schools in organising the practicum has been questioned. This paper reports on a study investigating the effectiveness of the teaching practicum for English as a foreign language (EFL) trainee teachers at three universities in Ho Chi Minh City as manifested in the training programme, the practicum arrangements and the mentoring practices. Data were collected by means of interviews with key practicum stakeholders including six university academic staff members, six university mentors, six school mentors and twelve EFL trainee teachers. Documents related to the teaching practicum from the three institu-tions also provided a rich source of qualitative data together with questionnaire data obtained from 141 final-year EFL trainee teachers. Some interesting differences were found in the way the individual universities worked with the host schools although a consistent theme emerged that showed a low level of university-school collaboration in supporting pre-service English language teachers during the practicum. Implications for EFL teacher education and the reinforcement of partnerships between universities and schools in prepar-ing EFL teachers are discussed.