We propose a new method for speech/non-speech classifiers based on concepts of the adaptive boosting (AdaBoost) algorithm in order to detect speech for robust speech recognition. The method uses a combination of simple base classifiers through the AdaBoost algorithm and a set of optimized speech features combined with spectral subtraction. The key benefits of this method are the simple implementation, low computational complexity and the avoidance of the over-fitting problem. We checked the validity of the method by comparing its performance with the speech/non-speech classifier used in a standard voice activity detector. For speech recognition purpose, additional performance improvements were achieved by the adoption of new features including speech band energies and MFCC-based spectral distortion. For the same false alarm rate, the method reduced 20-50% of miss errors.