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Why discussions fail?

When a discussion fails, everyone feels miserable. Teachers feel as if they have failed, and students feel like failures both as language learners and as students who have let down their teacher. Teachers will report that the students just weren't interested, or worse, that they had absolutely nothing to say.

It seems that discussions (and discussion-like speaking activities) often fail for one or more of these principal reasons. Which do you think happens most often?

What do you think happens most often?
	The students can't (or don't want to) put their thoughts into words
	They can't find the language to communicate
	They don’t want to try in front of their peers if they think they might fail
	The students really don't have much to say
	They aren't very interested in the topic of the discussion
	They haven't had a chance to think about the topic
	They don't have ready-made opinions which they can produce 'just like that'