Rodney Mantle worked for 17 years at the BBC, as a producer in domestic radio, as a sub-editor in the World Service Newsroom and in the International Relations Department, where he ran a confidential briefing service for programme makers working abroad, especially in the communist countries.

He taught English at a school in Germany and the University of Munich, as well as German at the University of California, Berkeley. He worked at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and taught French, German and Spanish at schools and colleges in England, with responsibility for IT. At the Institute of Linguists and the Association for Language Learning he organised many events. He has published BBC and Longman course books, as well as articles on all kinds of language topics, including TEFL. He has an Oxford M. A., a Glasgow M. Litt. and the CELTA and is an IELTS examiner and invigilator.

In summer 2003 he retired from UK school teaching and taught English and French in Dalian, China at Liaoning Normal University as part of the British Council China Teaching Programme. He attended the IATEFL Conferences in 1973, 1994 and 2003-2007. In 2005 he organised a SIG event at the Neusoft Institute of Technology in Dalian. Since September 2007 he has been teaching English at the Overseas Training Centre of the Shanghai International Studies University