Some questions and things to try:
0. Is your 9V battery fresh? Or are you using a power supply?
1. Try removing R4 entirely - just connect that one end of the speaker directly to C3.
2. Can you post a picture of your set up including the speaker?
3. Do you have a piezo disk like this:
![[SOLVED] NE555 as a tone generator for Morse code practice 836034-0](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=210387.0;attach=836037;image)
It might work as a better speaker. You can find them in magnetic window/door alarms which are cheaply available:
![[SOLVED] NE555 as a tone generator for Morse code practice 836040-1](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=210387.0;attach=836043;image)
4. What test equipment do you have? Scope? Frequency counter? Multimeter? If you have a multimeter, what model is it?
5. When powered the circuit should be switching the output (pin 3) from +9 to 0 very quickly. You can check this with a LED as follows:
Replace C3, R4 and the speaker with a resistor and an LED:
pin 3 ---- /\/\/\/ ---- LED ---- GND
The resistor can be anything >300 ohms. It won't matter which way you plug in the LED because you'll be testing it in both orientations. In both orientations the LED it should light up (constantly). This will verify that the 555 is oscillating. If you have a frequency counter mode on your multimeter you can determine the frequency of oscillation - just put one probe on pin 3 and the other on GND.